


The Year With No Summer

by SilverShroud



Series: The Path Less Travelled By [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Complete, F/M, Good Draco Malfoy, Healer Draco Malfoy, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Redemption, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27041731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShroud/pseuds/SilverShroud
Summary: After fleeing from the Astronomy Tower and going into hiding, Draco survived the war thanks to his Aunt Andromeda taking him in. Months on the run with his Muggleborn Uncle, Ted Tonks and later as a Healer's apprentice at Order Headquarters have led him to discard many old assumptions.  Now the Dark Lord is dead and his Dark Mark still carries the consequences of his past choices.“Uncle Ted used to say that doing good things doesn’t erase responsibility to address the bad things.” Draco glanced over as Bill Weasley came into sight. “I need to publicly face up to what I did. If we start making excuses and exceptions this stuff will just happen all over again. I wasn’t the only stupid kid who wanted to play at war. People need to see what the reality is like and what the consequences are.”Part Two of 'And the World Keeps Spinning'.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Andromeda Black Tonks, Draco Malfoy & Dean Thomas, Draco Malfoy & Narcissa Black Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: The Path Less Travelled By [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776505
Comments: 48
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost after some re-writing. It turned into less of a loosely connected series of one-shots and more into a bit of a bridge before 8th year. I also had a very useful and thoughtful review on the first part of the series that prompted me to alter the ending and need to re-do parts of this fic so I took it down while I did that.

It had been four hours since the Dark Lord had fallen and Draco was running on pure adrenaline. The Healers from St Mungo’s had been taking away the injured until at last only the dead remained, perhaps a hundred bodies or more.

He went with Turpin, searching Gryffindor Tower for any missing injured or dead. It had been surreal to comb through the Common Room and dormitories, seeing quills and homework left in the rush of the evacuation, someone’s half-made bed and a pile of laundry in the bathroom. Somehow the normality of it all seemed out of place and indecent amidst the death and suffering.

He was more than relieved that they didn’t find anyone. Still, it brought him closer to a conversation he both desperately wanted and at the same time was terribly afraid of having.

He sought out Dean in the Hall, spotting him arm in arm with Justin and talking quickly and enthusiastically with a much taller and ganglier Finnegan that Draco remembered. Draco felt almost afraid to interrupt as Finnegan’s eyes narrowed at his approach.

“Dean, can you come and help me with something?”

“Sure,” Dean shrugged himself free from Justin’s embrace and followed Draco back across the floor.

The Order and their families had set up by the Gryffindor table. The Aurors had shepherded the Death Eater prisoners and sympathisers to the far side behind the Slytherin table. In between them was everyone else looking worn and lost and broken. In the middle of them all, straight backed and blank faced, sat his Mother. He glanced back at Dean apologetically and saw sympathy in Dean’s eyes.

“Mama.”

He hadn’t called her that since he was five.

She had seen him; he knew that she had because her face lost the little colour it had had not five seconds ago. He could feel Dean standing just behind him, out of sight but comfortably present.

“Mama, it’s me, Draco.”

She unfroze only enough to lock her eyes with his, wide, angry and terrified. She spoke through clenched teeth, as if every word was an effort. “You…get…away…from…me.”

“Draco,” there was a hand on his shoulder and he turned to see Turpin with two Aurors flanking him on either side. “She looks to be in shock. We can take her to St Mungo’s – and then she’ll need to be questioned.”

“Questioned?” Draco couldn’t keep the sharpness out of his tone and then, knowing that this was an entirely reasonable step, he sighed and stepped aside to let Turpin help his Mother. “Can I come with her?”

Turpin looked like he wanted to say yes but stayed silent, glancing towards the Aurors.

“You won’t be able to stay in the hospital.” One of the Aurors spoke looking awkward. “Wards are all full…”

“Stay at my place.” Dean said immediately. “It’s London at least and you’ll feel closer.”

Draco felt a rush of gratitude towards Dean at that moment that was almost overwhelming and then frowned, reality crashing in behind the offered kindness. “Will your Muggles be okay with that?”

“I can talk them around. Listen, I’m going to say goodbye to Justin and Seamus. I’ll come to St Mungo’s and find you after.”

*

Hogwarts had been quiet when they left, knots of people drifting here and there on disparate errands in the near deserted school. St Mungo’s was by comparison a riot of noise and activity. For every dead person there had to have been four or five serious injuries and that meant everyone on board for a place like St Mungo’s. If he hadn’t been so exhausted, he’d have found the whole thing fascinating.

His Mum remained rigidly upright between the Auror and Healer who guided her to a private room. Draco found himself staring around the sparse room for distraction, taking in its single bed, white sheets and polished mirror. Dawn was drifting in through the windows casting pale pink shapes on the walls.

“Madam Malfoy,” a Healer in crisp green robes entered the room carrying a stoppered bottle and a small glass cup, “I am here to give you a sleeping draught.”

Draco was all prepared for her to smash the glass out of the Healer’s hands and breathed a sigh of relief when instead she took it and drank the whole contents in one swallow. Draco bent down and slipped off her shoes, simple flats in black leather so unlike her usual elegant high heels.

“Come on, Mum.” He lifted her legs up onto the bed, settling her beneath the loose sheet “Rest. I’ll come back in the morning – later to see you.”

She still didn’t look at him.

He waited until she was sure she was asleep before he stepped back into the corridor. One of the Aurors who had accompanied them was stood outside her door trying to look inconspicuous.

“Do you have to stand there?” Draco asked, trying to keep his tone polite.

“Interim Minister’s orders.” The woman shrugged. “Not my call, but she’s safer with a guard anyway if it helps to think of it like that. There’s plenty who won’t want her to talk.”

Draco was too exhausted to argue anymore and slumped into one of the long benches lining the corridor to wait for Dean.

*

“Hey,” the touch on his arm was gentle but he still startled awake as if he’d been slapped, making a grab for his wand before he recognised the voice of the person speaking. “Draco, it’s Dean.”

“I know…sorry” Draco sat up from where he had dozed off and rubbed sleep out of his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Just after nine in the morning. Grandma’s got breakfast on the go for us.” Dean looked at the Auror outside the room. “Is your Mum okay?”

“Sleeping too, I think.” Draco looked questioningly at the Auror who nodded and let him open the door a crack to peer in. His Mum was sleeping soundly, her long blonde hair loose and fanning around her shoulders, she looked peaceful enough.

Draco followed Dean out to the entrance of the ward, passing the Healer’s post on the way out and asking quietly for someone to let him know when Narcissa Malfoy was awake. They handed him a roll of parchment that would relay any message faster than an Owl could.

“Are you okay to do side-along?” Dean asked as they reached the Alley-way by St Mungo’s designed as a convenient Apparition point. “I mean I never technically got my license but…”

Draco’s stomach rumbled impatiently and he nodded. “Just don’t splinch me. I don’t want to end up with my left toe in Clapham and my right ear in Mayfair.”

“At least not at the same time.” Dean grinned, taking hold of Draco’s arm and tuning into nothingness.

They reappeared in a flat furnished with comfy looking armchairs clustered around a television and with shelves full of books and what looked like records. Dean’s Mother, Madam Thomas was a stern looking black woman with wide deep brown eyes and hair gathered into an intricate arrangement of braids that seemed impossibly perfect. When she smiled however all the sternness melted away and she embraced Dean with a fierce tenderness.

“Every time you go away, I worry you won’t come back.”

Dean kissed her on the cheek and moved back from the embrace. “Mum, this is Draco – he’s the one I told you about. Him and his Uncle helped me when I got away.”

“Thank you for helping Dean,” she said firmly. “Now you look very tired. Would you like to rest now?”

“Actually,” Dean interrupted before Draco could say anything. “We’re both starving.”

“Yes.” Draco agreed firmly. There were some delicious aroma’s floating out of the kitchen. “It’s really good to meet you, Madam Thomas. Thank you very much for offering me a place to stay.”

“Madam Thomas?” Dean’s Mum laughed loudly but kindly. “You can bring more Wizards to meet me, Dean, if they are this polite. No, Draco you can call me Celia.”

They were shown into the kitchen and Draco was introduced to a grey-haired woman with a thick Caribbean accent who turned out to be Dean’s grandmother and also the person responsible for the mouth-watering array of food prepared for them.

The food was unlike anything Draco had tried before. He found himself lured in by the delicious savoury smell of what turned out to be cabbage and fish with herbs and onions. He was extremely dubious when first watching Dean add generous slices of banana to his own plate and then eat the whole thing between slices of bread but after he tried it decided that Dean was definitely onto something. After that there was a sort of porridge that was delicately spiced that had him coming back for more and throughout came cup after cup of hot strong tea.

He couldn’t remember eating this much food since probably the start of term feast in his sixth year.

Dean’s sisters, all of them Muggles, drifted in and out to give him tight long hugs and catch him up on a year’s worth of missing gossip and intrigue. Draco was happy to fade into the background and then help out Dean’s Grandmother, who was most definitely a Mrs Thomas, by casting a charm to do her washing up for her before finally being shown to a spare bedroom and collapsing onto the bed to sleep.

He woke again at just after two in the afternoon according to the clock on the wall above the dresser. He felt a surge of nerves as he checked the parchment.

_Madam Malfoy awake and resting. She has asked to see you.  
Regards,  
Hlr Cavendish_

With food and sleep Draco felt better prepared than he had done earlier to speak to his Mother. He opened the door and made his way back down the corridor to the lounge, where he found Dean and his sisters watching some Muggle show which seemed to involve a lot of metal ships in space.

“I’m adding Star Wars to your Muggle Studies curriculum,” Dean greeted him with a smile.

Draco managed a smile at that. “It’ll have to be later. My Mum’s awake. Is Celia around and your Grandmother? I want to say thank you before I leave.”

“Mum’s at work and Gran’s gone to Church.” Dean looked at him with concern. “Do you have anywhere to go tonight?”

“I’m going to my Aunt’s house after I visit Mum. She’s always said I could stay there if I wanted to. Can you get Owl Post here?”

“Yeah, they drop it on the balcony.” Dean gave him a brief hug. “Write to me then and let me know you’re okay. But if you want to stay here tonight or – well for a while actually – Mum won’t mind. I explained stuff.”

Draco’s heart felt lighter for knowing that he had a friend who would do this for him. “Plus, we need to get those season tickets for West Ham.” He replied, seeing Dean’s own face light up with enthusiasm. “I’ll write tonight. Promise.”

*  
One breath later he stepped out of the Alleyway and towards the main doors of St Mungo’s. Waiting for him in the main entrance with grim looking officials on either side, was Kingsley Shacklebolt. 

“Draco,” the tall Wizard inclined his head in courteous greeting. “I was hoping to speak with you. You are here to visit your Mother?”

“Yes.” Draco said shortly, catching the suspicious looks being given to him by Shacklebolt’s colleagues. “I had hoped to take her to my Aunt’s house once I’ve had time to make the arrangements.”

Shacklebolt looked almost relieved to hear this and nodded sharply. “Walk with me.”

“Actually, I really would rather - “Draco began impatiently and then caught the Auror badges on the lapels of the Wizards accompanying Shacklebolt as they looked at one another and then back at him as if sizing him up. “At least let me see her before you cart me off.”

“No, you misunderstand. Please…”

With no other real options Draco fell into step beside Shacklebolt, their escort ploughing a wide path through the busy corridors.

“I have been declared interim Minister for Magic,” Shacklebolt’s tone was brusque and business-like. “As I’m sure appreciate, we have won the battle but the war is not yet over. Many Death Eaters are still free,” there was the smallest of pauses, “and need to be apprehended and questioned. I am sure you wish to cooperate fully with any enquiries.”

Draco gave the new Minister a flat look. “Of course.”

“Voldemort made his Headquarters in your family home. You yourself were marked as a Death Eater. You understand that an investigation must happen?”

“He murdered my Father.” Draco spoke through clenched teeth. “I risked my life to help the Order.”

“Nonetheless I am assigned Aurors to remain with you and your Mother. Your liberties are not restricted however for your own safety I do recommend not travelling too far from your residence until further notice. The Ministry would like to search Malfoy Manor for evidence.”

Shacklebolt pulled a roll of parchment from a pocket in his robes and handed it to Draco.

“If you would sign here to give us formal permission as owner of the Manor, I am sure that…”

“I don’t own the Manor; you need to talk to my Mo-” Draco began and then stopped. “Wait you mean it’s passed to me, even after I... well I ran.”

“You are the oldest living Malfoy heir of the male line. So yes, Mr Malfoy. You own the estate. Will you give your permission?”

Draco took the self-inking quill and signed his name to the document that gave the Ministry permission to rake through his parents most private secrets. It wasn’t like he had any other choice and the more he could do to cooperate the better it would be for the family legacy.

“Thank you, Mr Malfoy,” Kingsley took the document and passed it to one of the Aurors. “Now, Dawlish, if you would be so kind as to accompany Mr Malfoy whilst he visits his Mother. I’ve arranged with Crowther for you to be relieved for the night shift.”

Dawlish gave Draco a half smile of greeting which he didn’t return.

“May I be excused, Minister?’

“Of course, I’m sure we’ll be able to have your situation resolved quickly Mr Malfoy. Please pass on my condolences to Andromeda.”

Draco left Shacklebolt at the entrance to the ward, the Minister and his remaining escort proceeding down a corridor in the direction of a sign labelled Care of Curses. With a glance back at Dawlish he pushed open the doors and stepped onto the Urgent Care ward.

One of the Attendants supporting the Healers greeted him almost as soon as he made it through the doors.

“Mr Malfoy, your Aunt is here. She…” The man cut off abruptly as, almost immediately on his heels, appeared Aunt Andromeda herself with Teddy in her arms.

Draco took in her white face and red eyes, steeling himself before asking the question. “Was Tonks hurt? Is she here?” Aunt Andromeda raised her chin, a gesture Draco recognised from his Mother when she was trying to contain some great emotion. “She was killed.” And when Draco did nothing but stare at her in dumb, horror struck silence said again: “She is dead.”

“I – I’d have come straight away if I’d known…” he stammered, lost for words in the face of her grief. “I’m so sorry.”

Aunt Andromeda gave a half shrug as if nothing was worth saying that could temper such an immense loss and looked past him to the Auror hovering behind him, frowning. “Is the Ministry punishing children now, Dawlish? Draco was sixteen.”

“It’s okay,” Draco shot Dawlish an anxious look. “I agreed to it.”

“I heard on the Wireless that your home had been seized by the Ministry. I came to see if Narcissa would – if you would both like to stay a little while.”

“Of course, I want to stay!” Draco said immediately, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder. “We’re family. I can help with Teddy. Mum…well I hope Mum will see it that way too. She – things happened when Harry escaped the Manor.”

The Attendant, who had remained in awkward silence throughout this brief exchange now gently spoke up and offered to let his Mum know that she had visitors. They followed him down the long corridor and took a seat on the same wooden benches that Draco had fallen asleep on early that morning while the Attendant disappeared through the door into his Mum’s room.

The Auror, a different one now, regarded them silently from across the corridor.

Teddy was sleeping soundly in Andromeda’s arms, his hair a rippling pattern of mousy brown, platinum blonde and ginger. Draco felt a pang in his chest at Remus Lupin’s enthusiastic description of this not even a week ago at Prewett Hall. Even after seeing so much of it over the last year; death still felt unnatural to him in the way it abruptly stole people from your life so irrevocably.

The Attendant slipped back out of the room and gave him a nod. 

“She’s awake and ready for you.”

Draco reached across and took his Aunt’s hand, squeezing gently in a silent show of support before standing and making his way to the doorway. Dawlish, to Draco’s immense relief, took up a position opposite his fellow Auror, it seemed he was going to give them some privacy. Draco was nervous; talking to his Mother shouldn’t make him feel this way but he supposed lots of things would feel new and different now and it wouldn’t become any easier for waiting.

She was seated in the chair beside her bed, a copy of the Daily Prophet open on the table in front of her. As he entered, she folded the paper shut and sat back, hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes scanning his dusty and stained robes before meeting his eyes.

“Draco.” She said quietly, a simple, polite greeting as if this wasn’t their first real conversation in over a year.

His words threatened to stick in his throat. “Hello, Mama.”

“He is gone then?”

“The Dark Lord? Yes.”

She seemed to unbend slightly at that, some of the tension leaving her slight frame. He remained only a few steps inside the room, questions and declarations marching through his mind, each one dismissed as he struggled to put into words the whirl of conflicting emotions inside him. In the end he opted for the simplest one.

“I missed you every day. And Dad.” His voice broke then and he clamped down on his words, still the same old worries about appearance and decorum.

Her eyes flashed. “And yet when you returned to me you put the life of a Mudblood bitch above your own blood.” It would have been easier if she’d shouted. The icy calm was somehow more terrible than anger.  
“You could have given Potter to the Dark Lord that very night and spared the lives of all those killed since.”

“Don’t.” He said helplessly, sixteen years of hard learned obedience fighting. “Don’t say things like that, Mama.”

But she wasn’t listening to him. 

“You are my only son. I defied the Dark Lord to keep you safe. I risked everything for you. How could you turn your back on your own family?”

“Because you were WRONG.” His shout stung and echoed off the sparse walls, the sound surprising even himself. The door swung open to reveal the anxious face of the Attendant. Draco scowled at him and the man retreated just as suddenly as he’d appeared. 

“I love you Mum.” He continued, once he’d regained his composure. “I loved Dad. But I don’t believe in any of your blood purity stuff. Not anymore.”

“Your Father…” she began, and then the walls broke down completely and she began to sob. 

At that moment he didn’t care if she hexed him into sludge. He moved towards her and folded her into his arms as he felt tears well up in his own eyes. At long last he felt her return the embrace and sank to his knees beside the chair, clinging to her as if she might disappear at any moment.

“I love you,” she whispered fiercely. “I would die to protect you.”

“You don’t have to Mum,” he kissed her cheek and gave another squeezing hug. “Not anymore. He’s gone. We’re safe.” Draco glanced towards the door and the corridor where his Aunt sat waiting. “Your sister is here.”

Draco felt his Mum tense in his arms. “Andromeda?”

“I’m going to stay with her.” He said quietly. “Until things are sorted out with the Ministry at least. She came to ask if you wanted to come too.”

“She…” his Mum’s expression was full of fear and shame. “I haven’t spoken to her in over twenty years. She probably…”

“She kept your wedding photo.” Draco said suddenly. He wasn’t sure why he said it and almost immediately stopped talking, afraid that he would trigger a fresh wound of grief.

“Wedding photo?” His Mum blinked a few times, looking overwhelmed. “She did? Well – well then I suppose it is long past time we spoke to one another.”

*

Andromeda was stood beside the door when he opened and looked at him nervously as he stepped aside to let her through. He could feel his Mum’s eyes burning into his back.

“Should I…” he began.

His Aunt looked past him and into the room. Draco watched her face slid into that same still expression as her sister’s.

“Take Teddy for me?”

Teddy squirmed restlessly in Draco arms, flying out little fists to flail against Draco’s chest as if in protest at being separated from his familiar comforts and then closed his eyes, his hair fading to mousy brown as he settled back to sleep. Draco stood rooted to the spot, eyes flicking between Aunt Andromeda and his Mum as the silence extended outwards.

“I had hoped,” his Mum said finally, in tones of brittle politeness that Draco knew spoke more to high emotion than lack of it, “to meet your Husband at last.”

“Ted was murdered.” Aunt Andromeda spoke with awful calm. “My daughter as well. We,” she made an abortive gesture that encompassed the four of them, “are all that is left of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.”

“Bella as well then?” There were tears in his Mum’s eyes now and at Andromeda’s jerky nod of confirmation she stood and, after a brief agonised pause, wrapped her sister into a close embrace. 

After a few minutes his Mum seemed to find her voice again. 

“I’m so, so sorry. I missed you so much, Dromeda. I cried for weeks after you ran away. Papa threatened to send me to the Healers.” His Mum stopped and covered her mouth as if to physically block the words that threatened to spill out. 

“At least we have a chance at a new beginning.” Aunt Andromeda said quietly, a little of the stiffness leaving her now. 

“The Ministry have the House, Mum.” Draco added, rocking Teddy as he wriggled once more. “When you are ready to leave St Mungo’s, Aunt Andromeda has room for both of us.”

“I’d leave now.” His Mum said stiffly. “But there are Aurors at the door.”

“I’ve got one too.” Draco tried to keep his tone casual. “But honestly Mum, the Dark Lord’s followers are still out there. They’d kill me for sure. Try to see them as protection.”

“Protection?” She gave a harsh laugh. “They couldn’t protect themselves before how are they going to do it now?”

Andromeda threw a nervous glance at her sister. “I’ll find the Healers and we might be able to take you with us now.”

She swept from the room and Draco was left alone with his Mother again. 

“Shacklebolt tells me I’m head of the Family now.”

“Family!” She smiled bitterly. “The Parkinsons have torn up our agreement, Draco. Even if the young lady herself still consents, which I doubt, we will have to work hard to cement you a suitable match.”

Marriage and continuing the legacy; it had taken less time than he’d hoped for his old life to reassert at least some of its pressure on him. Draco had a sudden memory of Hermione’s fierce embrace and her hand in his when they all thought it was over for good. 

“Let’s just see.” He muttered, glad for once to be interrupted by the entrance of a Healer and the two Aurors.

“Madam Malfoy,” the Healer smiled thinly. “I see no reason to keep you with us any longer. I’m prescribing you some prophylactics for Nightmares which I would like you to take nightly for a week. I’ve made a time for you to meet with the Alienist, Healer Oberon next Thursday at Eleven.”

Draco was ready for the withering rebuke from his Mother towards anyone who dared to suggest that she would need to see an Alienist. He was relieved when it never came and instead, she nodded quickly and stood. 

“Very well. Andromeda, if you are ready.”

He knew people were staring at them as they made their way back down to the front of the hospital and out to where they could travel back to Falmouth. He kept his eyes fixed firmly forwards not wanting to look at any more angry and suspicious faces. His Mother walked beside him, head high as if the Auror beside her were an honour guard and not a visible sign of her misplaced loyalty.

He handed Teddy back to Aunt Andromeda before he Apparated and moments later was breathing in the clean air of Falmouth village. Out of sight of the gawking Public he reached for his Mum’s hand, squeezing gently to give her some reassurance as they made their way up the path to the Farmhouse.


	2. Chapter 2

It took three days for him to shake the feeling of constant jittery exhaustion. He still wasn’t sleeping well but each day of relative safety left him feeling a little closer to normal. The nightmares hadn’t changed though; he’d hoped they would go away with the fall of the Dark Lord but if anything, they were growing worse. He saw the people he’d watched die do so over and over again and mixed and mingled in with them were deaths that hadn’t even happened. 

He lay there with the daylight seeping in between his closed curtains until there was a knock at the door and a quiet voice.

“There’s a letter for you, Draco, dear.” His Aunt peered around the doorframe. “And if you wouldn’t mind seeing to the animals whilst I get Teddy ready.”

“Okay,” Draco yawned and forced himself to sit up.

Downstairs he found that his Mother hadn’t yet arisen. No surprises there, she had always slept late and taken breakfast in bed.

“I suppose you’ve already eaten,” he said to John Dawlish, who had the morning shift watching Draco and his Mother that week. “Can’t offer you a cup of tea?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Dawlish took the mug and sat down opposite him. “There’s a list of dead in the Prophet today.”

Draco slid the paper towards him and scanned the list of names, his gaze stuttering over two in particular. 

_Lupin (nee ́ Tonks), Nymphadora  
Lupin, Remus John_

“They haven’t listed the Death Eaters.” Draco said after a few moments of quiet contemplation, trying to keep his voice absolutely neutral.

“Ongoing investigation.” Dawlish shrugged. “Don’t want any of the Great Families taking legal action if we sully their reputation before we can be sure.”

Draco thought of Theo Nott and wondered where he was right now and who he had to comfort him. There was nothing he could do about that right now however and so he stopped the thought before a dark mood could take hold and changed the subject instead. 

“Aunt Andromeda said there was a letter for me.”

Dawlish handed him the opened envelopes. “Had to read it. Protocol you know.” The man at least had the decency to look sheepish. “In case anyone tries to influence your story.”

“You know my story; you’ve already heard it.” Draco said irritably, taking the envelopes and sliding out the first letter.

_Draco,  
I thought you’d want to know that Ron made it. He’s been asking to see you actually. You should probably write ahead to the hospital to let them know you’ll be coming though, he’s had a lot of visitors.  
Hermione_

“Good news.” Dawlish commented once Draco set down the letter again. “There’s plenty not as lucky.”

Draco felt a great heaviness lift from him at the news that Ron Weasley had not died saving his life. It was a surprising emotion to feel pleased about anything that Weasley had done but he was fairly sure he could live with it.

“Can I go? That is, am I allowed to leave here?”

“Of course, you can go, you’re not a prisoner! This is just until we can get your hearing out of the way.” Dawlish suddenly looked tired. “And believe me there at least fifty Death Eaters ahead of you.”

“Do you have to come too?” Draco asked and then scowled as Dawlish gave him a patient look. “Alright then,” he muttered, “pass me a quill, will you?”

*  
Narcissa Malfoy was perfectly amenable when she finally appeared later that afternoon and Draco informed her that he would visiting Ron Weasley.

It was evening by the time she came back to talk to him. Draco was reading the book Dean had sent him, some shiny Muggle magazine full of still pictures on the history of West Ham Football club, when the door to his bedroom was pushed open. The unexpected sound made him startle and reach for his wand.

“There’s no need for any of that,” his Mother sniffed, giving the wand a dirty look. “After all I am not the one who turned my wand on my family.”

Draco ignored the jibe. “It would be good if you could knock. I’m still – a little on edge.”

“I am your Mother.” She replied, as if this was a carte blanche to ignore his privacy at every turn. “I wanted to speak with you away from those awful people.”

Draco sighed. “The Aurors are just doing a job.” 

“We should not be subject to such treatment; we have been extremely generous to the ministry in the past. To be tailed like criminals.” She shook her head. “After we risked everything for Harry Potter.”

Draco couldn’t keep the irritation off his face. “Yes, it is particularly awful not to be locked up in Azkaban or dead by the Dark Lord’s hand, isn’t it?” He snapped. He should have known better than to think she was doing anything other than putting on a show for the Ministry who were so carefully observing her.

His Mother pressed her lips tightly together. “You know I only want the best for you. I understand you want to make the right impression but there have to be better ways…”

“I’m not going so I can ‘make the right impression’.” Draco retorted. “Ron Weasley saved my life. If he hadn’t pushed me out of the way I’d have been the one bleeding out on the floor.”

“And for that at least I am grateful,” she laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “But surely you could send a card or perhaps flowers? There are so many other pressing engagements – what of your cousin Nymphdora’s memorial?”

Draco had to work hard to disguise a laugh at the mental picture of how Ron Weasley would respond to being sent flowers by him. “I’m going.” He said stubbornly. “And speaking of memorials; we should think about how we are going to honour Dad. Perhaps we could look at how to retrieve his remains. He’d have wanted to be with his Father.”

“Yes.” His Mum spoke in the familiar precise and clipped tones she used when most emotional. “Yes I think that would be a very good thing to do.”

*  
Draco and Dawlish took the Floo to Diagon Alley where Draco made a few stops along the way. The Alley was already returning to life and it was a relief to see people window shopping again. After his errands were complete, they apparated to a point a few minutes’ walk away from St Mungos. The Hospital had been busy these last few days. 

It occurred to Draco as he squashed himself into a crowded lift that Weasley wasn’t even on the right ward, crammed into the top floor which was normally reserved for pleasantly batty old men with Dragon Pox.   
Hermione met him outside, an uncertain smile on her face. “Hello,” she said nervously, “how are you recovering?”

“Fine,” Draco mumbled, suddenly feeling tongue tied now that they weren’t in fear of their lives. Formality was always an easy way out moments like this and so he regathered himself. “Hermione this is John Dawlish, he’s an Auror who is making sure I don’t get murdered before my trial. Dawlish this is…”

“Miss Granger,” Dawlish smiled, “an honour to meet you at last.”

Hermione gave an embarrassed smile and stopped in front of one of the private rooms. “This is him.”

Draco glanced back to Dawlish. “Are you coming in?”

Dawlish shook his head. “I think Harry Potter’s closest friend is not likely to talk treason and from what I hear he’s in no condition to attack anyone.”

“Alright,” Draco turned back to Hermione. “Come on then.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I think I’m going to wait here. The last thing either of you need for this conversation is an audience.”

Draco frowned, he didn’t know why he felt nervous. It was only Weasley, there was hardly anything worse they could say to each other than what had already been said. Still he did want Hermione there and wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Not worried we’re going to hex each other into oblivion?” 

“Stop trying to delay things.” Hermione said almost fondly and pushed him firmly towards the door. “And go and talk to him.”

*  
Ron Weasley looked very pale and very still against the white of the hospital sheets. Draco let the door close quietly. Weasley’s eyes were closed and he looked like he was resting. Draco edged his way closer to the bedside wondering if he would be better to just come back later.

“I’m not asleep.” He said suddenly, making Draco jump so badly he nearly dropped the package he was carrying.

“Merlin and Morgana’s tit, Weasley!” He exclaimed, outrage and relief mingling to draw out a bark of laughter as he sank into the bedside chair. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Sure,” Weasley murmured, “there’s some French stuff Fleur brought that I’ve been saving, full of garlic, should do the job.” 

“Dark Wizard, Weasley,” Draco smiled. “Not a Vampire. Even you should be able to tell the difference there. Though I have to say we’re both not that brilliant in direct sunlight.”

That made Weasley laugh, a hollow hacking sound that told Draco he’d be spending a little while yet in this hospital room. His fingers were still cold where he gripped Draco’s forearm and levered himself upright to get his breath back. 

“God that hurts.” He groaned, taking another few steadying breaths as Draco, trained by months of Infirmary work, automatically arranged his pillows for him. Weasley gave him a sideways look of surprise. “Thanks, Malfoy.”

“Sentences we never thought we would utter.” Draco shot back, pulling out the bottle of Firewhiskey from the package and two glasses. “Now, I might be endangering my offer of a place here by doing this but I seem to recall an agreement to have a drink with you.”

“Well if I’d thought I’d actually live to do it I wouldn’t have said it.” Weasley gave him another half smile as he reached out and took the bottle, raising it in a toast. “To actually still breathing.”

“Actually still breathing.” Draco echoed, taking a small sip of the whiskey. “Which I wouldn’t be if it hadn’t been for you.”

“I was aiming for Neville.” Weasley muttered, but he was smiling. “Honestly, if you’d told me a year ago I’d be risking my neck for you I’d have said you were mental.”

“So would I.” Draco admitted. They lapsed into silence, sipping their drinks. “I think a lot about what you said back in the forest.”

Weasley shrugged and winced as a result. “I said a lot of stuff.”

“About me being a coward who switched sides when I got in over my head.” Draco felt his chest tighten at the thought of it and forced himself to keep looking Weasley in the face. “You’re right. I am. I’ll have to live with what I did for the rest of my life.”

Weasley reached for the bottle, grunted in discomfort and poured them both another measure. “So, you want forgiveness?”

Draco shook his head. “No. Or at least I don’t expect it.”

“You know, nearly dying gives you a bit of perspective.” Weasley said matter-of-factly. “When I was lying there bleeding out all I could see was your face as you were trying everything to keep me alive.” He smiled grimly. “Imagine my displeasure at thinking the last thing I saw would be you, Ferret face.”

“Lucky you?” Draco muttered. “Are you going somewhere with this.?”

“Just at how fucking petty we all were as kids. Y’know? Caring about broomsticks and Houses and Quidditch when all of that just doesn’t matter when it comes down to it.”

Sometimes people reminded him of Uncle Ted when he wasn’t ready for it. That was always hard. Draco swallowed hard around an unexpected lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

“We’ve all been through enough shit. Remus, Tonks, your Uncle, Fred…” Weasley took a deep shaky breath. “Even your Dad. All of them dead because of Him. I was nearly dead too and the only reason I’m not is someone I hated and who hated me put all that aside and helped me. There’s going to be another You-Know-Who one day, someone out there who will only get power if he gets us all to hate each other. I’m just so fucking done with buying into that.”

“Me too, Weasley.” Draco sighed. “Me too.” 

Another long but slightly less awkward silence followed this. Draco shifted a little restlessly in his seat. “So, what do we do now?”

“Not a bloody clue.” Weasley gave a resigned half shrug. “Can’t really do much until they let me out of bed.” He held up the still only half-drunk measure of whiskey with a grateful look. “This is the most daring thing I’ve done in days.”

Draco wasn’t surprised by this. Wounds like Weasley’s didn’t simply heal and could easily re-open if aggravated. He looked around the sparse room and spotted an old chess board in one corner. 

Weasley followed his gaze and looked suddenly hopeful. “Hermione’s hopeless and no one else will play with me, they all think I’m made of glass.” He gave Draco a shrewd once-over. “Bet I could take you.”

Draco had already picked up the board and begun arranging the pieces. “Perhaps I’ll take pity on you seeing as you’re the poor invalid. Do you play white or black?” He asked and then paused, he’d been so distracted by the strangeness of having not only a civil but actually downright friendly conversation with Ron Weasley that he’d completely forgotten about Dawlish and Hermione. “I – err – I’ve just got go and check something.”

Dawlish was leaning back against the wall outside the door talking animatedly to Hermione: “…so anyway I spent most of the war trying to fudge as much of the paperwork as I could. Oh, Mr Malfoy, finished already?”

Draco shook his head. “Not exactly, do we have a schedule or anything?”

“Shift doesn’t finish until three,” Dawlish pulled out his watch and consulted it. “And either way I can just get Proudfoot to come and relieve up here.”

“Alright,” Draco turned to look at Hermione. “I suppose you don’t want to wait out here all that time?”

“I’ll come and say goodbye,” she sighed, “I promised that I’d meet Harry in Diagon Alley, we’re going with George and Charlie to the Joke Shop to help him clean out Fred’s things.” She pushed open the door to Weasley’s room leaving Draco to hang back a little. He looked at Dawlish and couldn’t help feeling slightly guilty.

“Are you sure you don’t mind standing here? You could come in?” And then he couldn’t quite help a slightly mischievous smile. “Are you allowed to drink on duty?”

Dawlish cocked an eyebrow but said nothing beyond. “Don’t keep them waiting, Mr Malfoy.”

The scene that greeted him once he got back in the hospital room made him want to laugh and run away all at once. Hermione had hold of the Firewhiskey, firmly stoppered he was grateful to see, and was berating Weasley in tones of scandalised disapproval. 

“…and who knows what effect it will have on the prophylactics they’ve got your taking. Of all the boneheaded stupid things to do!” 

She must have seen Draco out of the corner of her eye because now he found himself faced with a full blast of her rule abiding righteous fury. “And you,” she said acidly, advancing towards him and poking him square in the chest, “should know better with the training you’ve had.”

“C’mon Hermione,” Weasley said in tones of excessive reasonableness, “It was only a few sips.”

“And Firewhiskey is absolutely known to promote healing.” Draco said seriously, having to expend every ounce of self-control not to crack a smile.

“I’m very sure it’s not.” Hermione retorted, looking just a little knocked off her stride. “I’ve read that…”

Draco shrugged. “It’s recent research.”

Weasley opened his mouth to say something and mercifully shut it again just as quickly. 

Hermione looked very much like she wanted to argue the point. Draco watched her have a furious internal debate and had to bite his tongue to avoid laughing outright when she set the bottle down with a decisive clunk on the shelf farthest from Weasley’s bed. 

“Well…well make sure he drinks it responsibly then.” She gave them both one last suspicious look. “And don’t end up cursing one-another.”

An altogether different kind of silence followed her exit as both of them exchanged looks of relief.

“That was a load of bollocks wasn’t it?” Weasley said slowly, sounding very much as if he didn’t want to sound as impressed as he was.

“I think that’s twice I’ve saved your life now, Weasley.” Draco remarked mildly. “So, shall we get on with this game?”

It was a good game in the end, Draco won, mostly because he wasn’t the one who’d recently had holes ripped in his guts, still it had been a lot closer than he’d expected. Weasley actually had a brain, behind a well disguised façade of course but it was there. He looked tired though and Draco decided not to rub it in too, at least this time.

“Perhaps we should have a re-match if you’re not out of here by next week.”

“Best of three.” Weasley muttered, lowering himself back carefully onto the pillows looking like every movement caused him pain. 

“If you’re so determined to lose again, Weasley.” Draco gave him another half smile and set about packing up the pieces. He’d just about finished when there was another knock at the door and one of the Healers came in followed closely by Hermione.

"They're running late. I just wanted to see how you were doing.” Hermione said carefully, giving Weasley’s hand a squeeze. “Do you want some company for a bit?”

Before Weasley could answer the Healer was already shaking his head. “Not until he’s had a few hours of good rest. You can come back for Supper Miss Granger but not before.”

Draco saw her shoulders drop a little at that and felt a twist of sympathy and guilt that he’d been the one to take Weasley’s time when they didn’t really even like one-another. He tidied away the board and stepped outside catching Hermione’s arm as she went to walk the opposite way.

“If you like we could have some tea while you wait. All that I’ve got to look forward to is another quiet evening in with my Aunt and Mother.”

It was stupid to feel nervous about offering this. It’s not like they were anything to one another beyond cautious friends borne out of desperate circumstances. He shouldn’t need her to say yes, but all the same he wanted her to. He watched her glance back towards Weasley’s hospital room and then give him another of those shrewd looks.

“Alright then.”

The hospital cafeteria at St Mungo’s was uninspiring to say the least, a long oak panelled room that smelled faintly of cabbage and antiseptic. Hermione and Draco took the table in the corner of the room but in a place full of people who all had loved ones to the forefront of their minds no one was looking at them. Dawlish took a seat at the table just next to them, seeming to want to leave Draco to talk when he could.

A house-elf in a green hospital pillowcase crept up to their table and took their order and appeared five minutes later with a pot of tea and enough biscuits to feed a small army.

“Thankyou.” Hermione said to it kindly, giving it a smile as it edged nervously away. Draco said nothing, talking to House Elves was something he had been taught never to do.

“So,” he began awkwardly, “how have the first few days been for you?”

She was silent for a few moments, contemplating the tea as it steamed in her cup. “Strange. I feel like I want to relax but I’m all…”

“On edge.” Draco finished, his words overlapping with Hermione’s and they shared a brief smile. “I know the feeling. Having my cousin around does help though, he doesn’t know anything has happened and he makes all of us smile when we need it.”

“There’s not much smiling at the Burrow right now, Ron’s family’s home.” Hermione sighed. “Ron’s in hospital, Fred is dead. I’ve never known it so subdued.”

“It’s never easy to lose family.” Draco sighed. “But you must have at least been able to see your own family, the Muggles?”

From the look on Hermione’s face Draco knew immediately that he’d stumbled onto one of those topics they’d been trying to avoid. She rallied herself as always.

“Actually, my parents went into hiding quite a long way away. I haven’t had the chance to visit them yet.”

“I see.” Draco kept his tone carefully casual. There was clearly more to this but he wouldn’t help himself or Hermione if he pushed too hard. His own self-centeredness hit him hard in the chest again as he thought about all the times she had comforted him for his own losses and he’d never given a thought to hers.

“I obliviated them.” She said suddenly, making it sound more like a confession than a revelation. “It was the only way.”

That broke the barrier they’d been negotiating and finally it felt like they could really talk. Draco listened as Hermione talked about sending her parents to the other side of the world in Australia and then around the edges of her worry for how she was going to bring them back and when.

“I mean, of course the charms were all consensual, but I’m worried that they might be happier there without me.”

Draco let himself sit with the silence as he considered how to reply. “But that’s not up to you to decide.”

Hermione looked at him with an expression of mingled exasperation and relief. “I know that and I suppose Ron will be alright without me for a little bit. I just always thought that…” she drifted into silence again. “I never thought I’d be going alone.”

He could feel the mad idea forming even as he fought to ignore it. “When are you going?”

“I…” she gave him a sharp look as if she could read his mind. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Well you’re not going alone” He announced, deciding that if he could face the Dark Lord then he could probably manage Australia. When Hermione didn’t say anything to immediately cut him down, he ploughed onwards. “I could talk to Turpin and see if we could bring an Alienist to help reverse the charms as well. That way they’ve got the best chance of recovery.”

Hermione studied him in silence for a long three seconds. “You’d do that?” 

This time he didn’t even hesitate. “Of course.”

When she spoke again, she sounded almost hopeful and a fragile smile played over her lips. “We’d have to go the Muggle way.”

Draco shrugged. “Well, I’m supposed to be exploring the world. Might as well risk my life along the way.”

Just as abruptly as her smile had appeared it now vanished. “Do you know when your trial date is yet?”

That brought the whole rosy picture of his future crashing back down to earth. For a few wonderful seconds he’d been able to see his life opening up instead of narrowing down into a darker and darker path. 

“No,” he admitted reluctantly. “And I understand if you want someone else, pretty much anyone would be better than me.”

“That’s not true.” She said decisively, swallowing the last of her tea. “You have at least two redeeming qualities. It’s just we don’t know what’s going to happen…I always thought I’d go with Ron.” She said quietly. “Now I don’t know when he’ll be well enough.”

As Draco set down his own empty cup he found himself disappointed that they’d have to part again soon with no set agreement on when to meet again. 

The answer came to him in a sudden flash. How could he have been so ridiculously stupid as to forget. “Uncle Ted’s Memorial is next Saturday at 11am. I’d like it very much if you could come.”

There was the briefest of pauses while she considered and then nodded. “I know he meant a lot to you. Yes, I’ll come.”

Uncle Ted would have liked Hermione, Draco thought to himself as they collected their belongings and he excused himself to get the bill before either she or Dawlish could object. They both had a kindness to them surrounded by a steely determination and razor-sharp mind. Maybe that was why he found himself drawn to her now.

It had been a good decision in the end to see Weasley, Draco felt, not promising anything, not pretending it was all going to be fine but having it open so that they could do this again if they wanted to. The chance to speak with Hermione had only made the day better. He and Dawlish made their way back down towards the hospital main entrance and he wasn’t paying that much attention as Neville Longbottom came striding up the central corridor with a girl by his side until they were almost face to face. 

Longbottom gave him a cool look of cautious welcome. “Malfoy, who are you visiting?”

Draco felt the same awkwardness that had permeated the opening gambit of his visit to Ron Weasley start to settle over the two of them. “Just went to check on Weasley actually.”

There it was, the flicker of surprise that he was behaving like a decent human being. If he hadn’t earned it then he would have found it irritating. Draco was sure Neville was thinking about how Weasley had saved his life just as much as Draco’s.

The girl with Neville was the one who broke the ice and introduced herself as Hannah Abbott who he recognised vaguely from classes at school. At a loss for what else he could say to someone he’d bullied for years Draco opted for the safe course of asking what Neville’s future plans were now the war was over.

That turned out to be the right question and Longbottom immediately began to talk enthusiastically about his plans to take a year to travel to Brazil and study the plants there. Draco did his best to listen politely. It was something of a relief to talk about the future, Draco liked the thought of going back to study but so far, he hadn’t allowed himself to think beyond the trial. Still, he was somewhat distracted by Hannah, who kept looking at him as if she wanted to say something but didn’t quite know how to do it.

He and Dawlish finally said their goodbyes to Hannah and Neville and were walking towards the foyer when Hannah Abbott came hurrying after him.

“Malfoy, I just – well I wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?” He said, hoping he sounded more surprised than churlish.

“You saved my life. At the battle. I was attacked by a Werewolf.” Her hand went to her chest and the memory suddenly burst to the front of his brain. Draco gaped at her for a few stunned seconds before he could speak.

“You were the Hufflepuff girl!”

She nodded and pulled back the neck of her robes just enough to show an ugly scar beginning a few inches above her sternum. “The Healers say I won’t carry the curse but if you hadn’t found me well, they said I’d have died.”

“I – I just wanted to help.” He stuttered, utterly unprepared for this interaction.

“Well you did. I’m here because of you.” Seemingly unable to contain herself any longer Hannah moved forward and gave him a quick tight hug. “I know you’ve got to go. I just couldn’t let you leave without saying something.”

Dawlish watched her hurry back towards Neville and gave Draco an impressed look. “Good end to a good day.” He commented.

Draco nodded, still reeling from coming face to face with someone who he had directly assisted in saving from death. Listening to Longbottom wax lyrical about botany had reminded him of his own new passion. This brief conversation with Hannah had signalled to him that he needed to plan for it rather than sit back and hope for the best. When the memorial for Uncle Ted was over he would write to St Mungo’s and ask what he needed to do to be accepted for Healer Apprenticeship


	3. Chapter 3

The following Saturday, Draco found himself glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece every few minutes as it got closer to the time when the guests would start arriving. Eventually he lost patience with himself and went out to join Aunt Andromeda who was standing at the edge of the Farmyard.

“Ted would have wanted a party.” she murmured, looking around the grassy field scattered with tables and small canopies where, very soon, at least three hundred people were expected arrive. “You know how he was.”

Draco smiled as he pictured Uncle Ted making the rounds between the long groaning tables of food, cracking jokes and hailing anyone he met. “He’d have loved this.”

Everything seemed bright and lively, so different from the stark grief of the small, private ceremony for Lupin and Tonks. Draco didn’t know what it was that Andromeda had said to his Mother to make her agree but Nymphadora Tonks and her husband were now buried in St John Bosco’s churchyard in Hogsmeade, an honour usually reserved for only the oldest and most respected Pureblood lines.

“Of course, it is really for Remus and Nymphadora as well. I’d have had something like this for all of them but I didn’t want to wear people out.”

Wear herself out more likely, Draco thought to himself. Though he had been pleased that his Mum had helped out with the preparations.

“I can take Teddy if you like?” He offered, wanting to give her as much of an easy time as he could on an otherwise very difficult afternoon.

Aunt Andromeda gave him a bright smile, brittle only at the edges. “Thank you, Draco, that is very kind. His bottle will be…”

“…due at three and must be warmed before I give it to him. I know.” He took Teddy and watched his cousin stir briefly before settling to sleep in his arms. “Go and do what you need to. I’ll find you if anything happens.”

*

Uncle Ted had known a lot of people and had been very well liked. Over the next hour more and more Witches and Wizards made their way up the garden path. Draco settled Teddy into the crook of his arm and set about greeting and directing people, letting his Aunt have as much time as she wanted to talk at more length.

There was the odd person who cast a dark look towards him but otherwise the reactions were almost evenly split between indifference and cordial recognition.

“Hello, Draco.” Octavius Turpin came striding towards him, smiling down at Teddy. “And I believe I’ve also met this young man as well.” He gestured to a tall young woman with a thin face framed by an explosion of chestnut curls. “My daughter, Lisa. You were in the same year at school I believe.”

Lisa nodded politely, her expression all guarded cool courtesy. “Malfoy.”

“Knew your Uncle well from Mungo’s.” Turpin continued. “There are a lot of us from there coming today. I hold out hope to see an application from you soon enough. I’ve already put in a good word for you. Ted would be very proud.”

“There’s a lot that needs to happen before I can do that.” Draco smiled. “I also wanted to thank you for agreeing to speak at my hearing..”

Turpin’s expression grew more serious. “I’m glad to do it. No matter what anyone who hasn’t met you had to say about it.”

Draco was spared having to negotiate how to respond to that particular statement when he caught sight of Hermione walking across the grass towards him. Turpin followed his gaze and gave a wry smile, taking his daughter’s arm and steering her away. “Come, my dear, let’s go and greet Andromeda.”

*  
“Hello.” Draco said hoping he didn’t sound as nervous as he felt. “Would you like me to show you where you can get a drink?”

“Maybe not straight away,” Hermione smiled reaching out and letting Teddy wrap a chubby fist around her index finger. “This must be Teddy?”

Draco nodded and gave her a quick mischievous smile. “Edward Lupin, I am honoured to introduce you to Miss Hermione Granger, future saviour of the Wizarding World.”

She gave him a patient look. “I think you might have me and Harry confused.”

Draco detached Teddy from Hermione and laid him against one shoulder. “How is Harry? I hope he didn’t feel left out. I just…I didn’t want to overwhelm Aunt Andromeda.”

Hermione frowned. “He’s okay. A little too okay if you ask me. He and Ginny have been spending a lot of time together.”

The silence bloomed again, Teddy rescuing them this time with an interested gurgle and a sneeze that turned his hair bright green.

“Excellent colour, Edward,” Draco announced cheerfully. “Actually, I was hoping to talk to you about my offer. It still stands. Turpin is here, we could ask him.”

They settled themselves beneath a spreading chestnut tree.

“I’d like to.” Hermione sighed. “I appreciate it I do. But Ron is getting stronger and I – well…I don’t want you to feel obliged.”

“I’m not offering out of obligation.” Draco said immediately and then felt the words dry up on him. Honesty was a hard habit to learn after so many years surviving by hiding his feelings but he was getting better at it. “I’m offering because I know what its like to worry that you’ll never see your parents again.”

There was a long silence and then Hermione nodded. “Alright then.”

Draco hadn’t quite allowed himself to contemplate actually going until that point and gave her a brief wide smile before his own self-consciousness caught up with him. “Definitely time for a drink then?”

He slipped away to fetch a couple of glasses of elf wine. At the drinks table he found his Mother with an expression of disapproval written all over her features. “Must you spend time with that girl?”

“Not now, Mum…” he began tiredly. “We’re friends. In fact if I somehow escape Azkaban I’ve offered to go away with her for a few weeks before we go back to school.”

“No.” She snapped. “Absolutely not. I’m not letting you go off on some stupid adventure. What if something happens to you?”

“Worse than having a Dark Wizard murder me for not killing for him?” Draco retorted. “Honestly, Mum I’m eighteen. I’m technically head of the Family, or what’s left of it. I can go where I want.”

For a second he wondered if he’d created a scene and if he was going to have to apologise to Aunt Andromeda for making her sister cry when today should be about Uncle Ted, but his Mum simply sniffed in derision and turned away, leaving him staring at the drinks and trying to remember what he had been doing before she’d interrupted him.

The particular spot where he had left Hermione was just out of sight of the main part of the field; that had been intentional as neither of them had particularly felt like being the subject of stares and gossip but it did mean that Draco didn’t see what was happening until he was practically in the middle of it.

A few metres away from where he stood he watched with a sense of rising dread as his Mother drew herself up to her full height and sneered down her nose at Hermione. 

“You are the girl of no Wizarding blood who my son chose to save over his own family.”

“Mother!” Draco said sharply. “Be quiet, go and sit down!”

But she didn’t sit down and she didn’t stop talking. “And it seems he still chooses you over me. What is so beguiling about this plain little Mudblood, Draco?”

Narcissa was speaking loudly enough that her voice carried. At the sound of the insult a few heads turned, shooting hostile looks towards the two of them. Draco was between them in a few strides and put his hand on Hermione’s arm, giving her a brief reassuring squeeze as he glared at his Mother. He dropped his voice to a low fierce whisper. “Have you no respect? No shame? This is a memorial.”

His Mother sneered at Hermione but Draco could see her façade cracking at finding that, rather than embarrassing him, she had only succeeded in looking small and petty.

“I think I will go and sit in the shade a while.” She said stiffly. “I burn so easily in the sun.”

***  
“I am so sorry,” Draco burst out the moment his Mother was out of earshot. “I should never have let her near you. I’ll go and make her apologise.”

“No,” Hermione frowned. “You’re right, this is a memorial and I don’t want to make trouble for your Aunt. Besides, forced apologies mean nothing.”

“I just think that…” Draco began heatedly.

“Don’t.” She said firmly. “Don’t fight my battles for me. I don’t need you or anyone else to do that. I’ve managed that perfectly well since I was twelve and against far worse than your Mother.”

Draco glanced sideways at her and then studied the daisies poking up in the grass below his feet. “I really hate it when she does this.” He sighed. “It’s like looking in some twisted mirror of what an absolute arse I was. You can see why I’d want to stop her, surely?”

“Yes,” Hermione said slowly. “But you have to decide if respecting my wishes is more or less important to you than feeling uncomfortable for things you did that, frankly, you should feel uncomfortable about.”

“Fair point.” He mumbled.

“Though,” she gave him a very small smile. “I do appreciate that the intention was good. Shall we go and find a seat? They’ll be starting the speeches soon.”

*  
“Is everything alright?” His Aunt appeared from the way in which his Mother had gone and cast an anxious look between Draco and Hermione. “Did Narcissa?”

“It’s fine Mrs Tonks,” Hermione said firmly. “We don’t want to cause any difficulties.”

Aunt Andromeda gave Draco a curious look but let it go at that, seeming distracted by the upcoming speeches. She held out her hands. “I can take Teddy now, I think I’ll need him.”

It wasn’t a funeral in the way that the others Draco had attended this summer had been. Sandwiched in between Aunt Andromeda and Hermione he found himself in the strange position of wanting to laugh and cry almost at the same time at the anecdotes of his Uncle Ted being remembered.

He didn’t actually cry until it was his Aunt’s turn. It wasn’t what she said so much as the quiet dignity of her grief when she talked about the man she had given up everything for. For Draco it brought back the first evening at his Aunt and Uncles with the sharp pain of his Father’s murder.

_“I know how much it hurt her to do it.”_

Uncle Ted’s words came back to him almost as if they were being spoken again. Aunt Andromeda had lost almost her entire family and here he was thinking about himself again.

Hermione reached over and wordlessly took his hand, squeezing gently and then providing a firm grounding presence for the rest of the tributes until he could get hold of himself once again. After that it was easier, it always was when you let yourself feel the emotions rather than parcelling them out into neat little categories and only allowing them out on command. Hermione let her hand drop away as people began to mill about again, talking together in small knots.

“God that was hard.” Dean sighed, coming up and squeezing Draco’s shoulder. “Doing okay?”

“Well as can be expected.” Draco smiled, Dean’s eyes looked just as red as his own probably did. “You? I’m really glad you got to come.”

Dean sighed and plastered a weak smile onto his face. “He saved my life. If I hadn’t run into you two, I’d have been murdered or worse. I feel so lucky to be standing here right now and breathing free air.”

Draco nodded, a twist of guilt uncurling in his stomach as he thought of the role he’d played in trying to kill the very people who had eventually saved him. “I wish I’d never been stupid enough to want that world. I wish I could just go back with a Time Turner and just…stop all of this.”

Hermione looked at him sharply. “How do you know Voldemort wouldn’t just have killed you if you’d said no? And you can’t have been the only one fool enough to want to join him.”

Draco pictured his classmates, Blaise, Theo, Gregory and Vincent. Would they have done it? What about the 7th years? So many of them had talked up a good game about joining the Cause once they graduated but only because they had absolutely no idea what it entailed. Then there had been the younger kids. The Dark Lord had marked him a month after his sixteenth birthday, he would probably have used anyone he thought eager enough and dispensable enough.

“And,” she continued matter-of-factly, “if you had stopped it then you’d probably still be the same arrogant bullying bastard you were before the real world hit you in the face. Which I think would be bad as I like the person you’re turning into.”

Draco raised his eyebrows at that but couldn’t quite stop the smile. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“Just the truth.” She looked at him seriously for a moment and then gave a brief smile. “Anyway, I’m going to speak to some of the other Order members who are here. I’ll come and say goodbye before I leave.”

Hermione disappeared into the crowd leaving Draco feeling oddly elated by what she had just said. Dean watched her go and gave Draco a mildly intrigued look. “That was interesting.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Draco muttered a little defensively. “She and Weasley are made for one another.”

“Alright, so from one awkward question to another. How is your Mum doing?” Dean asked, looking a little nervous about the question.

“Reminding me of all the things I used to be. She was awful to Hermione earlier.” Draco sighed. “She came home the next day. Well, to my Aunt’s place. The Ministry is still searching the Manor. How about you?”

Dean gave a half shrug. “I guess I’m okay. Being home is...different. The Muggles don’t have a clue about all the shit that went down. It’s so weird to go out and have everyone just being happy and normal.”

“Have you been watching any football? I read the book you sent me. It was pretty interesting.”

Dean smiled at hearing that. “When you get the trial done you should come over and we can watch a match together.”

“Hmmm.” Draco sat back in his chair and stretched. “You say that as if being on trial as a marked Death Eater is like getting detention.”

“They’re not going to send you to Azkaban.”

Draco’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch at that thought. “There’s no guarantee of that.”

“Mate you were sixteen. You spent five months living in a tent on the run from them and then you saved Harry Potter’s life – twice. No way.”

“Uncle Ted used to say that doing good things doesn’t erase responsibility to address the bad things.” Draco glanced over as Bill Weasley came into sight. “I need to publicly face up to what I did. If we start making excuses and exceptions this stuff will just happen all over again. I wasn’t the only stupid kid who wanted to play at war. People need to see what the reality is like and what the consequences are.”

“Well,” Dean looked thoughtful, “I hope they don’t send you to Azkaban. You’d probably do more good for the world out of prison than locked up.”

The rest of the afternoon was spent drifting between knots of people, making sure the food remained available, making cups of tea for distant relatives who only now had decided Andromeda should be welcomed back and trying to make himself useful in every other way he could. It was better to be busy, that way he didn’t have to think too much about anything else. Hermione said her goodbyes a few hours later and promised to write to him.

He took Teddy back from his Aunt just before the next bottle was due and was sat feeding him when Dean came to say goodbye. 

“You look busy,” he said nodding to Teddy nestled contentedly in Draco’s arms. 

“He’s easily pleased.” Draco said with a smile, “I’d stand up but I don’t like to disturb a gentleman at dinner. Are you heading away?”

“I promised my Mum I’d babysit for my cousins. She’s got bingo.” For all Draco knew Bingo could be anything from a complicated Muggle Sport to a religious ritual so he settled for a polite nod. “It was good to see you. I – I suppose the next time will probably be at the hearing. Let me know when you hear about it okay. I’ll be there to support you.”

“Thanks,” Draco said sincerely. “I’ll send you an Owl first I hear.”

*

The following morning Draco got up early, found a sheet of parchment and wrote off to St Mungos requesting an official application pack for the Healer Apprenticeship. He’d expected it to take a few days at least and so was more than a little surprised when a few hours later the Owl had returned with the application papers for St Mungo’s and a note explaining that he should just submit the information he was able to as the Admissions Board were being flexible in light of the disruption to the examinations process.

He was glad of that note because he’d had to leave the entire section on formal qualifications blank. They normally wanted top marks in Charms, Herbology, Potions and Transfiguration. He hadn’t even taken Herbology in his sixth year and his education had, for all practical purposes, stopped after his O.W.Ls given how little attention he’d paid it during that nightmare year.

However, he could give a good account of himself when it came to practical experience and why he wanted to become a Healer. He talked about his Uncle, Bill Weasley, Turpin and, after a brief internal debate, about Hannah and the uplifting feeling of meeting someone he had helped.

The application had been easy right up until the point he came to actually send it. That had been fifteen minutes ago when his Mother had come downstairs and asked him who he was writing too.

The argument had begun there and now had only grown colder as it ground on. Now they were glaring at one another, another fight he didn’t want to have.

“I’m very sure that Healing is a noble profession, Draco.” His Mother said tightly. “But that is precisely my point. It is a profession. You already have duties and responsibilities as the owner of the Estate. Who is going to oversee the land and tenants if you are off playing Healer and Wise-woman with every pretty young thing at St Mungo’s?”

Draco folded his arms defensively across his chest. “I’m very sure we can stretch to an Estate Manager, Mother.”

“That is neither here nor there. You’re a Malfoy. You can’t just swan off and do what you like.”

Aunt Andromeda, who had been watching the whole exchange in silence from the far side of the kitchen, finally spoke. “If Draco wants to do this, Cissy. I think you should let him.”

“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” Narcissa snapped. “You already gave up your chance. I won’t have you leading Draco astray too.”

“Don’t be petty.” Andromeda said levelly. “Though, if you want to begin a discussion on who led Draco astray, I would be more than willing to have it.”

“Everything I did,” Narcissa choked out, tears welling up in her eyes. “Was to protect him. I am doing it now still because everyone else is gone. His Father…Lu – Lucius would not…” but she couldn’t finish the sentence and stood sharply, tears already streaming down her pale cheeks as she headed upstairs to her bedroom.

“Mum,” Draco began, guilt once again forming a painful lump in his stomach. “Mum, don’t.”

Andromeda caught his arm as he made to follow up the stairs. “Give her some time.”

“I should just give the whole thing up!” He said furiously, throwing down the completed application on top of the envelope. “It’d make Mum happy and it’s not like they’d ever let me in anyway with my past.”

“They’re not going to let you in at all if you don’t send it.” His Aunt said gently. “They know your name and they’ve still sent you the papers. You worked with seasoned and experienced healers for at least two months. I think you have more of a chance than you think.”

“Why is Mum like this?” He sighed, feeling far less like a prospective Healer and more like a lost and confused child than anything else.

“She loves you.” Aunt Andromeda sat down beside him, studying him intently with her wide brown eyes. “I know you may not see that very easily at the moment but she is not lying when she says she has done everything she could to protect you.”

“Trying to trap me at home and pressuring me into being some bored member of the landed gentry is hardly protecting me.” He said sourly.

Aunt Andromeda let out a long sigh. “Draco, you and your Mother would always have had an argument like this, War or no War. Mothers do irrational things when they think their children are threatened or in danger.” She paused and glanced towards the wall where photographs of Ted, Tonks and Remus smiled and waved out at them. “I had a nearly identical argument with Nymphadora about her Auror training. I wanted her to get a nice respectable job in the courts as a Secretary and find a nice young man to marry.” 

“Tonks?” Draco turned his laugh into a cough, worried that he’d sound disrespectful but his Aunt only smiled.

“Narcissa raised you in the best way she knew to become what she expected you to be. Now you’re chafing against that and she thinks that you will put yourself and your future at risk.”

“That and she thinks that I’m somehow dishonouring the family by not following in my Father’s footsteps. I tried that.” He said angrily. “It didn’t work out.”

“Your separation from one another during the war and Lucius’ death has made things more difficult yes, but it can be worked through and it’s certainly not a good enough reason not to apply.”

Draco studied the application anxiously. “What if they say no?”

His Aunt squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. “What if they say yes? Send it. I’ll take a cup of tea up to Narcissa and check on her.”

Draco waited until his Aunt had disappeared upstairs before stuffing the parchment carefully into the envelope and tying it carefully to the leg of his Aunt’s Barn Owl, Petrarch. The bird took a treat from his hand and then hopped over the kitchen sink, flying out the window off in the direction of London. It was a relief to have it done. Now all he had to do was wait.

His Aunt came down again half an hour later and gave him a small, tired smile. “She’s okay. She’ll be down when she’s ready.”

“I sent it.” He said quietly. “I was wondering…could I go down to the shed? I feel like I want to talk to him and…”

His Aunt looked at him for a long time. “I – I haven’t opened it since he died.”

“I just.” Draco began and then the words died in his throat. The shed had been the place he and Ted had had some of their best conversations. Going back there was the closest thing that Draco had to visiting Ted’s grave.

Finally, Andromeda nodded. “Let’s go together.” She picked up the small silver key from its nail next to the Umbrella stand and stepped out of the door, glancing back for Draco to follow.

They reached the bottom of the garden, turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. Draco’s hand went automatically to the Lumos switch and the room flickered into visibility. It was as if Ted had stepped out a few minutes ago to go and get a cup of tea from the house. His overalls were still folded over the back of the chair against the workbench and the pen where he’d sketched new track designs still rested beside a half-finished doodle.

Aunt Andromeda looked around, her hand flying up to cover her mouth. “Oh,” she let out a long shuddering breath. “Oh Ted…”

For the merest fraction of a second Draco expected Ted’s head to pop up from behind the far side of the table and ask them both when Supper would be. Of course, he knew that couldn’t happen and instead turned to lay a comforting hand on his Aunt’s shoulder.

“Is there anything I can do?”

She shook her head and sighed. “I needed to come down here. I’ve been putting it off. I – I don’t want to get rid of his things.”

“We don’t have to, not yet anyway.”

“No,” she sounded more like herself now. “No, you’re right of course.” A thin cry sounded from the open Kitchen door. “That will be Teddy wanting his bottle.” She dropped the key into his open palm. “Lock it up the Muggle way when you’re ready to come back.”

Once he was alone Draco moved towards the workbench, looking for the master switch for the Electric supply. He wasn’t sure that whatever charms the Muggles used would still hold after all these months. To his surprise and pleasure the little Red and Gold train sitting at the model station began to glide slowly around the track.

“I’m sorry I never came back.” He said, addressing the empty room as if Ted really was still sat at the workbench like he had been for all those evenings they’d shared together in this room. He pulled out Helga’s Hope and placed it gently down, watching it run around the tracks behind Gryffindor’s Galloper.

“I – I applied for the Healer’s training programme. I wish I could tell you properly.”

It was stupid to be talking to himself like this and even stupider still for it to make tears well up and his throat close up over his next words. “I wish you were still here.”

There was a section of track that Ted had wanted to re-lay. They’d been working on it the day that Ted had got the letter from the Muggleborn Registration Committee. Draco trailed his fingers over the new railway sleepers still laid out ready for assembly. He’d just do a little bit; just for old times.

A knock at the door some time later made him finally look up from gluing track in place. There was no clock down in the shed but he could see from the length of the shadows against the wall that quite a bit of time had passed by.

“Come in?” He called, half expecting the evening’s Auror to be checking on him.

“I remembered to knock this time.” His Mum smiled a little awkwardly, looking almost comically out of place. She came to stand behind him and looked down at the models with an expression of polite bafflement. 

“What are you doing there?”

“They’re Muggle Model trains. Uncle Ted used to build them.”

“Ah, well – that’s nice.” 

She sounded so like he had the first time he’d seen the Shed that he smiled in spite of himself. She returned his smile and he felt something unknot a little in his chest. It was the first moment they’d shared like this since they’d been back together again. 

“Show me then.” She pulled out the spare stool and, after dusting it over with her handkerchief, perched herself delicately on it with an expression of interest.

“Well,” he began, “mostly it runs on Muggle Electrics.”

It felt like a fresh start. For the next twenty minutes she sat patiently and watched him at it, asking the occasional question about materials. Eventually he felt able to tackle the Occamy in the room.

“I know you love me, Mum.” He said quietly. “I know you want the best for me. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her tense up. “I accept that, of course.”

“I still care about being a Malfoy. I don’t want to throw away the legacy or the history; but I don’t have to be Dad or Grandpapa. I can be my own person.”

“Is some common job really all you hope for now?” She shook her head sadly. “I had such high ambitions for you when the Dark Lord returned. If only Lucius had not fallen from favour you might not have had to…”  
Draco’s hand went automatically to his left forearm. “I would have, Mum. You know I would have. What’s worse, I’d have wanted to do it.”

“And then you’d have tried to flee and I’d have lost both of you.” She sounded flat and defeated.

“Do you blame me for Dad’s death?”

Draco wasn’t sure what possessed him to ask that question now. He had done everything he could to avoid thinking about it but the guilt over running away and leaving his parents had wormed its way in deep and was slow to let go. 

“Of course not.” Her horrified exclamation banished at least some of the demons. “How could you think that?”

“Because I do.” He choked out. “Blame myself I mean.”

“No, Draco…no,no…” she folded him into her arms, soothing him as if he were a child again. “It isn’t your fault. The Dark Lord…I think he always intended to do it. You were never supposed to succeed in the task he set you – you were supposed to die first and then Lucius was to follow.”

“Why did you want me to stay then, at the Manor? If you thought he’d kill me?”

She shook her head looking frustrated at herself. “I – I don’t know. I thought he would forgive the family if you brought Potter to him. Then when you left with the Mudblood.”

“Hermione, Mum.” Draco cut in abruptly. “Her name is Hermione.”

“With Hermione then - I was afraid, Draco. I thought he would come back and catch you in your treachery. I didn’t want you to die. I didn’t want to be the cause of your death.”

He swallowed nervously before asking the next question. “What happened when the Dark Lord returned?”

His Mother only shook her head at that, lips tight pressed together. “Let me spare you that at least. I am alive and whole. That is enough for you to know.”

So much pain. So much loss. No one had come out free from it whichever side they had found themselves on. He forced himself to sit with the silence as it settled over them.

“You see why I want to do things differently now?” He managed eventually. “I don’t want people to look at me and see a Death Eater. I don’t want our legacy destroyed. I want the name Malfoy to be respected again, for the right reasons this time.”

His Mum sighed and nodded, looking around. “Shall we go back up to the house now?”

*  
After that things became a little easier. The tension wasn’t completely gone but it was good to have made a beginning a least. There was still no word on when or if they would be able to return to the Manor and Draco noticed that the Aurors were less friendly with his Mother than they were with him.

“Letter came for you, Draco.” Hayes was the Auror on duty that day and his normally genial expression was unreadable.

“I wonder if it’s from West Ham. I asked Hermione for help to send it. I’m getting Dean Thomas some tickets.” Draco yawned and poured himself a cup of tea before reaching for the envelope and stopping dead.

“It’s from St Mungo’s!”

“Yep.” Hayes said, rocking back on his heels, hands in the pockets of his robes. 

A sudden burst of excited nerves burst up into Draco’s stomach. “Have you checked it?”

“Yep.” The Auror said again, stolid and stubborn.

“Merlin and Morgana!” Draco swore, making a grab for the envelope.

_Dear Mr Malfoy,  
On behalf of the Admissions Board for St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries I am pleased to offer you a provisional place on our Apprenticeship Programme. This offer is conditional upon your obtaining the requisite grades in the following N.E.W.Ts  
\- Charms  
\- Transfiguration  
\- Herbology  
\- Potions  
\- Defence against the Dark Arts  
In general applicants are required to achieve at least Exceeds Expectations in all examinations. Individual circumstances may be considered by the Admissions Board upon appeal.  
Wishing you all the best for your coming studies,  
Hlr Percival Potts_

“They…they made me an offer. Well, you knew that.” Draco grinned at the Auror. “You have the best Poker face.”

Hayes shrugged and gave him a brief smile. “Not my news to share. Though, this may mean they speed up your hearing. The repairs to Hogwarts should be completed in time for the usual start of term. If it means anything, I’ll be recommending they discharge without conviction.


	4. Chapter 4

Of all the people who he thought might visit Draco had not expected Theodore Nott to be one of them. Proudfoot, the Auror for the day, regarded the two of them suspiciously as they sat facing each other across Aunt Andromeda’s kitchen table whilst Narcissa Malfoy fussed around giving orders to her sister for tea and refreshments, spilling out regrets and condolences for Theo’s Father.

“Thank you, Madam Malfoy,” Theo said politely, taking the cup of tea and sipping on it. “But I had rather hoped to speak to Draco in private.”

The quick look towards the Auror for permission had become almost second nature now. Draco didn’t miss Theo’s frown of irritation as he caught Draco at it.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” Theo turned to Proudfoot. “I have no immediate family left alive now and I was at school for the duration of the War. I think I am safe enough to talk to my friend alone for a few minutes.”

He didn’t have to add that if he were under suspicion then he would not have been allowed to visit at all. Proudfoot gave a brief nod and Theo looked at Draco with an expression of relief.

“Should we go up to your room?”

Draco opened the door to his bedroom and shoved aside a pile of clothes, robes and books to make a space for Theo and sat down on the carpet, legs stretched out in front of him. The last time they had spoken to one another was the evening everything had fallen apart on the Astronomy Tower. Theo had tried to stop him leaving to let the others in. If only he had been able to listen.

“So, we’re friends again now?” Draco began hesitantly. “Last time we spoke I recall that you labelled me , what was it ‘a delusional idiot’.”

Theo quirked one eyebrow. “Would you argue with my assessment now?”

“No. I absolutely confess my delusional idiocy.” Draco gave a small smile and then looked up at Theo meeting his eyes properly. “I’m sorry about your Dad.”

Theo shrugged, picking up a copy of the West Ham Magazine, frowning at it and putting it to one side. “You know I never really went in for Dad’s line on the whole supremacy thing.” His tone was a little too casual and Draco could see the strain in his face as he spoke.

A sort of heaviness settled on his chest at the memory of Theo’s Dad gasping out his last breaths with his fingers still clamped tightly around Draco’s arm, imploring him to find his son and protect him. Would Theo want to know that? Would it make it any easier?

“Parents are still parents.” Draco said gently. “We still love them. Even if they do things that we wish they wouldn’t.”

“I feel almost like I can’t love him.” Theo said abruptly. “Knowing what he did. It feels all tangled up.”

In that moment Draco decided that Theo deserved to know and to do with the information what he wanted. He knew how much he himself would have appreciated even one last word from his Dad.

“He loved you,” he said quietly, the words feeling stilted and forced.

“You don’t know him.” Theo said stiffly. “You can’t say what he felt.”

Draco took a deep breath. “Well I can because I – I was with him at the end, your Dad I mean.”

Theo’s eyes had gone very wide and his face very pale. “What do you mean?”

Draco prayed that his voice came out steadily and was rewarded. “I was helping the Healers. We found him injured, we tried to help but it was too late. We couldn’t save him. He died thinking of you, wanting to keep you safe.”

Theo’s eyes were shimmering with unshed tears now. “Was he in pain?”

“No.” Draco said firmly, that was a lie he could live with. “He just wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“If he’d cared so much why did he go and get himself murdered?” Theo snapped savagely, a sudden sob escaping before he smothered it. After another few seconds he took a few shuddering breaths. “He was a Death Eater. I know that. I know he didn’t have a choice but to go and fight. I just wish…I wish that he’d been more my Dad and less of that awful thing the Dark Lord made him. Do you understand what I mean?”

Draco nodded, staring at the carpet between his feet. “I loved my Dad.” He felt the familiar squeeze of grief at the memory of Lucius Malfoy and the reminder that his body was still missing until one of the Death Eaters who were now in the Ministry’s care deigned to reveal where it had been buried. “I know people won’t want me to or won’t understand. But he was just my Dad to me. I never saw him do anything cruel or awful. I mean I know he did but – but it just isn’t how I remember him.”

They fell quiet again for long time after that. Theo was the one to break it.

“Did you hear about Vincent?” 

Draco shuddered a little. “Yeah.” The news had filtered through via his Mum and ever since he had heard it the flames had entered into his nightly terrors. 

“Awful way to die.” Theo shook his head, his gaze far away. “Potter and his friends dragged Blaise and Gregory out of there or they’d have gone the same way.”

Now that was a surprise. Blaise had never struck Draco as someone to get involved in reckless or brutal exploits. So many of them had talked up a good game about joining the Cause once they graduated but only because they had absolutely no idea what it entailed. Then there had been the younger kids. The Dark Lord had marked him a month after his sixteenth birthday, he would probably have used anyone he thought eager enough and dispensable enough.

“Zabini? What was he doing mixed up in all of that?”

Theo smiled bitterly. “Same as the rest of us. Trying to be an adult before he was ready. His Mum was under pressure for her last marriage to some half-blood nouveau riche playboy and I think he wanted to get in with the Dark Lord’s inner circle.”

Draco’s stomach twisted at the thought of the boys he had grown up with facing choices like that. It was easy to forget he hadn’t been the only one. What would happen to them now?

“Is everyone…I mean have you seen anyone else?”

“Not since Hogwarts. Blaise wrote to me; said he was going to America with his Mum. I don’t know if he’ll be coming back. Pansy, well you saw how Pansy was. I think she’s going to be announcing her engagement to Shoaib Shafiq any day now. The rest of us just got on with it last year.”

Draco was surprised at how indifferent he felt towards the news that Pansy would be marrying someone else. She’d always just been ‘there’ in his future and now she wasn’t he almost felt relief. 

“I’ll bet the Carrows were insufferable.” He muttered. “Having their Dad and Aunt both running mad about the place.”

“Merlin, they were as well.” Theo gave a hollow chuckle. “It was only them and Adeline Runcorn who were absolutely thrilled with the whole change in arrangements. Even Milly wasn’t as pleased as I expected her to be.”

“Feels strange to think it’s over. Well, that the Dark Lord has gone. Do you know what you’ll do now?”

Theo shook his head. “Not really. Dad left me everything in his Will so I don’t have to worry about a job just yet. I think I might go back to Hogwarts and get some N.E.W.Ts. I’d like to try my hand at experimental charm work.”

Draco’s head jerked up in surprise at that. “I didn’t think anyone else would be going back.”

It was Theo’s turn to look surprised now. “You mean you are?”

“Well, maybe…” Draco said hesitantly. “I’ve sort of got an offer of a place at St Mungo’s if I can get the N.E.W.Ts. That’s assuming they don’t make an example of the Family and put me in Azkaban for life.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Theo said airily, “using you as the poster child of repentance would probably play better with the public than casting themselves as people who punish children. I mean, look at how that worked out for Barty Crouch.”

That was exactly the shred of hope that Draco himself was clinging too and it felt a lot more reassuring than heartfelt reassurances from well-meaning people. 

“You know it’s never going to be the same for you now?” Theo said eventually when Draco had finished talking. “People like Pansy are going to hate you for spitting on your birth-right and everyone else will see you as a Death Eater and nothing else.”

“Maybe.” Draco shrugged. “But if it’s between me being disliked and the world ruled by the Dark Lord; I know which one would be worse.”

Theo gave him a flat look. “I hope you still feel that way when it begins to bite.”

“Me too. But after the things I saw…I can’t regret it. I just – I’m sort of amazed I’m still alive to be honest.”

Theo nodded and then suddenly looked up with a quite different expression of interest from the previous sombre one he had worn.

“Do you know when your trial is?”

“No.” Draco frowned. “Why?”

Theo examined his nails with a slightly mischievous smirk on his face. “Just planning on getting you spectacularly drunk at the Badger and Boar if I ever get the chance.”

“The Badger and…” Draco scoffed. “Why would I want to go to the Hufflepuff Old Boys Club?” 

“Because between The Writing Desk being a den of bores, The Witch and the Wardrobe being full of fucking Gryffindors and Argent probably banning you for life we have precious few options left open to us when it comes to good liquor and better company.”

“I’m sure I’d be very welcome at the Witch and Wardrobe.” Draco said with exaggerated haughtiness, catching the glint of mirth in Theo’s expression. “I happen to be a good friend of Harry Potter’s.”

“You know I rather think we should try, if only for the scandal it would cause.” Now that was the old Theo back as if the last two years hadn’t even happened. “I would LOVE to see old Wood’s face if he saw you in there.” 

After that, what Draco had expected to have been only a brief conversation stretched on for several more hours. It felt more than good to be able to forget everything for even just a brief time and just be himself rather than a symbol or a caricature or a convenient target for someone’s anger and loss. When his Aunt finally came up to see if Theo wanted to stay for Supper, he and Draco were both surprised by the time that had passed. Theo quickly made his apologies and Draco walked with him to the edge of the farm gate, waving him off with promises to write soon.

The first court reports of Death Eater hearings began to appear in the Prophet about a week after Theo’s visit and Draco’s offer from St Mungo’s. Several days later Percy Weasley had appeared at the front door of the farm with Draco’s formal summons to his hearing two weeks from the date on the top of the letter.

After his experience trying to get into the American Embassy early in the war Draco hadn’t really expected there to be much international interest but he swiftly discovered that couldn’t have been more wrong. The International Wizengamot were in Britain to oversee the Judicial Process.

It meant, on the one hand, that justice would be more impartial than simply a series of show trials by the victorious Order and their supporters against the remnants of the old regime. Unfortunately, it also meant that, as a marked Death Eater, even the tacit support of the new Ministry for Draco did not guarantee that he would walk free.


	5. Chapter 5

The morning of his trial finally arrived. His Lawyer, Junia Fawley, was a member of an old family which his Mother approved of but had also been imprisoned in Azkaban by the Dark Lord’s government for her public objection to the activities of the Muggleborn Registration Commission. She had been due at eight sharp and it was now quarter past. Draco waited nervously by the Kitchen window, glancing back every now and again as his Aunt flipped through the paper and his Mother sat sipping tea.

“Felix Rosier’s got ten years in Azkaban for Mugglenapping and use of torture.” His Aunt sighed and scanned down the page. “And there’s life sentences for Yaxley and Avery, well – that’s not unexpected is it.”

Draco remembered meeting Felix, Evan Rosier’s son at a dinner over the summer before 6th year. He hadn’t seemed like a monster who would terrorise Muggles; he’d seemed pretty boring actually and had spent most of the evening talking earnestly to Draco about care of Bowtruckles.

“Felix has a wife and two children.” His Mum said quietly. “I should write to her and offer my help.”

“Can we not talk about Azkaban.” He snapped irritably.

The loud crack of Apparition made them all jump except Proudfoot who seemed to have been expecting it. Draco opened the door to welcome Madam Fawley.

She was a tall Witch with sharp cheekbones and brown hair that looked like it would curl if it got half a chance. She stepped into the kitchen, smiling and offering her hand. “I am Madam Fawley, it is good to meet you at last Mr Malfoy, Owl correspondence is so limiting. My apologies for the late arrival I was waiting for the final confirmation from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that we are due to be heard today.”

“Junia!” Aunt Andromeda stood and embraced Madam Fawley. “Oh, it is good to see you free again. Could you stay for tea?”

“Andromeda,” Madam Fawley smiled brightly and then nodded politely towards Draco’s Mother. “Madam Malfoy. I’m afraid we don’t have time for refreshments just yet Andromeda. Draco and I will need to leave almost immediately.”

Draco didn’t miss the stricken look on Narcissa Malfoy’s face. “Mum,” he said quietly, moving to embrace her. “I’ll be okay.”

“What if I never see you again?”

“You will be able to attend the trial itself Madam Malfoy.” Junia Fawley’s tone was icily polite. “And I assure you that your son is in good hands.”

After one quick embrace with his Mother, Draco and Madam Fawley Apparated to London and, five minutes later, walked through the doors to the Ministry of Magic. 

*

His Great-Grandfather had been Chief Warlock. Draco had seen the pale eyes of the portrait follow him as he was escorted down the corridors and into the small antechamber beside the court room. What would Mantus Malfoy have said to Draco if he had been alive to see his descendant bought before his bench?

He was jerked out of his contemplation by Madam Fawley’s not unkind question. “Nervous?”

Draco realised that his hands had balled into fists and breathed out slowly, relaxing them. “Who is the Prosecutor?”

“Michel d’Or, you won’t know him. He’s a member of the French Magistrateur, all the prosecutors are foreign Wizards to prevent accusations of nepotism and corruption. That said I still think we have a very good chance of avoiding a conviction.”

“But they are looking at that, aren’t they?” Draco set his jaw and looked down over the list of charges. “Marked Death Eater, attempted murder, use of an Unforgiveable Curse; any one of these could land me in Azkaban and it’s not like I can claim innocence.”

“We’re not going to say you didn’t do it,” Madam Fawley’s lips thinned. “We’re going to argue you were under-age and coerced.”

“It doesn’t make a difference how old I was.” He said irritably. “I didn’t exactly try to avoid it.”

“Ah but it does matter,” she smiled, the court can’t try you as an adult for offences committed before you were Seventeen. This means we just have to satisfy the court you were coerced and under threat of death and we have an excellent defence.”

The low rumble of voices could be heard on the far side of the door. Draco felt his mouth go dry. “There are hundreds of people in there.”

Madam Fawley nodded. “I’m aware it won’t be easy. You’re the subject of much discussion, Mr Malfoy.”

“Probably more because Harry said yes to speaking for me.”

“I’ll admit that does help more than anything I can argue on my own.” She gave him a brief smile. “Would you like to read his prepared statement?”

Draco skimmed over the words on the parchment in front of him and raised his eyebrows at seeing the great and good Harry Potter admit to casting a Dark Curse and nearly ending Draco’s life.

“Don’t suppose you’re going to charge Harry with attempted murder for using that spell?”

Madam Fawley remained impassive. “No, Mr Malfoy, we will not. I presume this does not mean you refuse to include Mr Potter’s statement in your defense?”

“No.” He muttered. “I’m glad he’s doing this for me. It’s just – they aren’t nice memories, you know.”

“I’m sure they are not.” She sighed. “However, we will get to show some of the good you’ve done as well. Miss Granger has offered to give her account of your escape from Godric’s Hollow and your home and of course as you know, Healer Turpin will be speaking in your defence as well.”

The door to the courtroom side suddenly clicked open and the wall of noise from the hundreds of gathered Witches and Wizards grew even louder. A court official in somber black silk robes with a slash of scarlet at the hood looked him over dispassionately.

“They’re ready for you now, Mr Malfoy.”

*

The room was cavernous and stretched upwards farther than Draco could crane his neck back. He felt like a particularly unfortunate specimen trapped under a large bell-jar like the many that had lined Snape’s dungeon back at School.

“Take a seat, Mr Malfoy.” The Usher said firmly, giving him a gentle nudge towards the chair dominating the open space in the centre of the room, and then added quietly. “The chains won’t bind you.”

There were lights ringing the floor on which he and the Usher stood which made it hard to see the faces of the assembled Wizengamot. He sat down in the chair which as promised didn’t immediately bind him in place.

A voice with an accent he couldn’t quite place, somewhere in Germany or Eastern Europe he guessed, suddenly boomed out from above his head.

“Mr Malfoy appears before us this day, Wednesday 20th June, charged with having acted in support of the Dark Wizard Voldemort. Specifically: he is charged with conspiracy to commit murder, use of the Imperius Curse on a fellow human being, irresponsible use of dark magical objects and the reckless and deliberate use of poison with intent to kill.”

A hush fell over the courtroom. “Mr Malfoy,” the voice continued. “You have been advised by your legal counsel of the very serious nature of these allegations.”

“Yes,” he said nervously. “That is, yes I am aware.”

“Your counsel has submitted a list of names to the Wizengamot to speak on your behalf. Do you consent to those named providing testimony to this court.”

“I do.” 

“Very well. Monsieur d’Or, if you please.”

The Prosecutor seemed to unfold from the chair at the side of the chamber where he’d been sat. He paced into the centre of the room and stood before Draco with the bearing of a Duellist awaiting permission to begin.

“Draco Malfoy,” he said suddenly, pivoting to address the assembled Wizengamot, “heir to ancient and powerful dynasty of Pureblooded Wizards with wealth and privilege beyond the imagination of most gathered here. Yet, despite this natural advantage he remained unsatisfied. He yearned for yet more power and yet more opportunities to grind the rest of us down beneath the heel of his patent leather shoe.”

There was a ringing silence, D’Or obviously knew how to work a court room. The Prosecutor turned again and gave the full weight of his attention to Draco.

“Mr Malfoy, do you deny the charges read out in court against you?”

“No.” Draco whispered.

D’Or smiled mirthlessly. “If you could speak up for the court, Mr Malfoy.”

“No.” Draco said again, hating the tremor he could hear in his voice.

“Well, then what are we doing here?” D’Or turned back to his audience again. “He says himself that he is guilty. If I were to roll back his sleeve now you would see the Mark of Voldemort upon him, branding him as guilty. Yet we who stand for justice must hold ourselves to a higher standard.”

Draco looked up again, hoping to catch a glimpse of his Mother. 

“Bored by us already, Mr Malfoy?” D’Or said airily. “How about we begin then; in your own words, tell us how you came to bear that Mark.”

“The Dark Lord said that he would give me a chance to prove our family was still worthy of our place by his side.”

Draco trailed off into silence. He had felt so important to be there the day it had happened with those hard faced, adult Wizards. How could he ever have been so stupid? D’Or looked at him impatiently. 

“Please continue, Mr Malfoy.”

“He said there was a special task that I must complete to restore my family’s place. A test of my ingenuity and skill. Then he said I had to take Dad’s place since he’d failed in his duty. That’s when he put the Mark on me.”

“What was the task?”

Draco swallowed hard. “I was to murder Albus Dumbledore.”

Once, in Potions, they’d had to use live Salamanders. Draco had felt sorry for the poor creatures. He’d used a numbing charm as he’d taken the parts of its body he needed as carefully as he could. The beasts would live and the tails they’d harvested would grow back but it felt cruel to trap a creature like that and cause it pain.

By the end of d’Or’s three hours Draco had a reasonable idea of what the Salamander must have felt like. D’Or had done his research and a long line of damning witnesses and objects were paraded out for the court to examine and judge. He stared at the floor as one by one the Witnesses for the Prosecution were called forward to tell the world in damning detail about all the evil things that he had ever done.

The worst was Madam Rosmerta who had wept openly as she described him cornering and attacking her. Draco had never even thought about her over that last year; never even considered that he’d hurt her. It wasn’t like he’d threatened her or used the Cruciatus. He hadn’t ever thought what it must feel like to have your freedom of will ripped away like that. 

D’Or looked to be bringing his case to the close and slowly was drawing his questioning closer to the end until finally he reached it.

“Could you please tell me what transpired between you and Albus Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower on the night of his death?”

“I…” Draco began, closing his eyes to picture it more clearly as the words began to flow.

He’d half expected to be killed the moment he got through the door. Not dying had come as such a surprise that for a moment he’d been frozen and unsure of what to do next. He’d been so mad with terror that he could barely think. Then he’d lowered his wand and just stood there and watched as Professor Snape cast the killing curse.

“I couldn’t stop him.” He finished quietly. “There were so many of them. It was too late.”

“Too late.” D’Or nodded and looked up and around at the Wizengamot. “Yes, Mr Malfoy it was too late. If only you had had your change of heart a little sooner. Many more lives might have been saved.”  
One final question then. Were you aware that Severus Snape had been acting as a double-agent against the Death Eaters for the Order of the Phoenix?”

Dumbledore had told him that too and he remembered laughing in sheer disbelief that the man could be so naïve. Of course, that had been before Draco found himself not in Malfoy Manor but alone in Grimmauld Place, waking up from the stunning spell with Snape’s last words to him echoing in his ears. 

_It seems that you’ve declared your loyalties at last, Draco._

“I thought he was loyal to the Dark Lord. At least until he took me away.”

He shivered at the memory, looking up at the banks of faces blurred by lights. 

“So,” d’Or nodded and gestured widely to the room, “good people of the Wizengamot, you have heard his crimes and his account of himself. I think it is fitting to close here at the point where Mr Malfoy himself admits that his much vaunted change of side was little more than cowardice and that he was still prepared to leave with a man he believed to be a Death Eater rather than stand in opposition to Voldemort’s brutal and violent regime.”

There was an outbreak of whispers and muttering from all around the courtroom. Draco ached for his wand at that moment, desperate to cast a disillusionment charm and disappear from beneath the scrutiny of so many eyes.

“Adjourned.” Declared the same all-present voice that had spoken to start proceedings. The Usher appeared silently beside him.

“If you would follow me, Mr Malfoy.”

There was no one in the antechamber besides Junia and another Court Employee who provided a tray of lunch and then melted away again.

“That,” Draco said decisively, “was unquestionably the worst three hours of my life. Dumbledore himself could rise from the grave and declare me a Saint and I’ll put money on my still being in Azkaban by this evening.”

“Michel is good,” Madam Fawley agreed, “but he hasn’t told the whole story.”

Over and over as the witnesses had been called Draco had heard Ron Weasley’s words all those months ago when he’d returned to Harry’s side to find Draco already there.

_“I don’t think you switched sides, Malfoy. I think you got in over your head and you were looking for a way out of facing the consequences for the shitty things you’d already done. Harry might fall for your whole act of remorse and Hermione believes you’ve changed but I don’t.”_

He’d meant what he’d said to Weasley in the hospital room when he’d admitted that the other man had been right but that didn’t get him out of the consequences. What if he was just lying to himself and everyone else and really would have turned back if he’d had the chance? Was he no better than anyone else who had lied their way out of trouble the last time the Dark Lord had been in power. Could he really live with that?

“Alright,” Draco pushed the roast dinner aimlessly around the plate, finding his appetite had deserted him. “I – I – just hope you’re as good with a crowd as he was.”

“I have a son a little older than you,” Madam Fawley said suddenly. “Sebastian. You remind me of him sometimes.” She smiled as she said his name. He’s a smart boy, too smart for his own good sometimes. Very proud of his heritage and his abilities. Dotes on his Father. He works at St Mungo’s now.”

Draco frowned at her, wondering what point she was trying to make.

“And about three years ago he wanted to join the Death Eaters.”

Draco gaped at her, “What?” Of all the things he’d been expecting it hadn’t been that. “But the Dark Lord locked you up? How could your son have wanted to join him?”

“He thought that putting Purebloods first would bring peace and harmony to our society. He didn’t like what he saw as the corruption and dilution of Wizarding culture. We had a terrible row over it. He left home in fact. Then I was taken to Azkaban and that seemed to knock some sense into him.”

“But he never tried to murder anyone.” Draco said flatly.

“He never got in far enough to be forced into it.” She nodded. “But I shudder to think what Voldemort would have had him do under threat of killing me if it had been even only a few weeks later.”

Draco felt sick at the memory of just such threats being made to him and his family. “My parents.” 

For just a moment the professional façade slipped and Draco saw not Madam Fawley the Lawyer but Junia the Mother. “I don’t excuse your actions, Draco.” She said gently. “But I understand why you felt you had to do what you did and I know how easily my son could have been in your place. That’s why I agreed to take your case. I want to give you the chance to do some good.”

*

Another fifteen minutes later Draco was escorted back out to the chair in the centre of the courtroom with Junia Fawley by his side.

“My learned friend has given a good account of why it is that Mr Malfoy is here before this Court today.” Madam Fawley had an easy, confident manner as she walked slowly around the perimeter of the court room. “However, I feel that his case, however compelling, does not convince me that Mr Malfoy is undeserving of this Court’s compassion and mercy.”

She paused in her slow progress around the room and faced him. “Mr Malfoy, please tell the court how old you were when you took the Mark.”

“Sixteen.” He said as firmly as he could. 

“And, as my learned friend so kindly established for us, you were told this was your chance to redeem your Family’s standing. Can you describe for me the point at which you began to fear for your life?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the watching public. Draco’s skin prickled with the memory.

“At Easter I wasn’t going to go home. He – the Dark Lord that is - was there, obviously, at the Manor and I didn’t want to face Him. I wrote to Mother and told her I’d be staying at School and she wrote back ordering me home. Except, well, I rather felt she’d been told what to write.”

Draco felt the squeezing panic grip him even now at the thought of that summons. He hadn’t slept for the last two days of the Spring Term.

“My Father was still in Azkaban at that point. When I arrived home; I was summoned to private audience with the Dark Lord.”

His hands began to shake. He gripped the arms of the chair tightly to hold them still. He didn’t want to break down here. 

“He made it very clear that if Albus Dumbledore was not dead before the end of the school year then my Father would…” his throat closed over the next words but he forced them out through sheer will, “would pay the price for my failures.”

“He threatened to murder your Father?”

Unable to speak, Draco nodded, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. 

He heard Madam Fawley’s soft exhalation and the swish of her robes as she turned her attention away from him. “Which, as the Court knows, is exactly what happened to Lucius Malfoy when his sixteen-year-old son could not carry out the Dark Lord’s orders.”

She spoke for a little while longer, giving Draco time to collect himself before the first witness was called.

Harry still had the same magnetic pull on a crowd that Draco had always found irritating until he’d been given the chance to get to know the boy behind the legend. He even looked a little nervous as he took his place at the witness stand and, Draco’s brain picked that moment to find strange things to fixate on, he was wearing jeans to a formal occasion.

“I trust that Mr Potter needs no introduction?” Madam Fawley smiled at the smattering of appreciative laughter that echoed around the room. “Mr Potter, could you describe your relationship with Mr Malfoy?”

“We’re friends.” Harry glanced towards Draco and gave him the smallest of smiles. “Now at least.”

“But not always?”

“Well,” Harry smiled properly now. “I got a lifetime ban from Quidditch for trying to pound his face in during our fifth year, so no.”

There was more laughter now, with a nervous edge. Here was the Boy who Lived, the Chosen One who had conquered the Dark Lord sticking up for a Death Eater; a sight that obviously caused a few watching Wizards some not insignificant discomfort.

“And as I understand it, you raised your concerns about Mr Malfoy’s actions during his sixth year with members of staff and with your friends on multiple occasions?”

Harry nodded, a faint frown tugging at his lips. “I knew something was happening. I wanted to stop him.”

“Thank you, Mr Potter, I invite you to read your prepared statement now before the Court.”

It was strange to hear his own despair from Harry’s perspective. It all sounded so much more clinical when someone else described it. Madam Fawley didn’t dwell overlong on dark curses and how lucky he had been to avoid death. She was more interested in what Potter had overheard and asked him to repeat that part of the statement again.

“Draco said that unless he did it – I suppose he meant fixing the Cabinet - soon then Voldemort would kill him’.” Harry said firmly.

“Thank you, Mr Potter.” Madam Fawley said briskly. “So, this was Draco Malfoy in the lead up to his Seventeenth Birthday, not yet of age and yet already terrified for the life of his Father and now under threat of death himself. Consider this when you come to judge him.”

Draco wasn’t asked any further questions for the statements of his Professors, the surviving ones anyway, who gave an entirely unremarkable account of his schooling and conduct during his years at Hogwarts. As Professor Flitwick vacated the stand Madam Fawley paused and bent to speak quickly to him. 

“Small change in the witness order. You’ll see why if it works as it should.”

“Alright,” Draco agreed, flicking a nervous glance up towards the shadowed ceiling.

“With the permission of the court,” Madam Fawley continued in a voice to address the whole room. “I would like to alter the order of the witnesses we have called. I have the permission of Mr Malfoy to do so.”

“Proceed.” Came the bored reply.

The next three witnesses were all Healers he had worked with during his time at Prewett Hall, Octavius Turpin among them. Draco focused hard on how the wood felt beneath his fingers and the faint smell of smoke from the candles to keep his mind in the here and now and not back in some Muggle dwelling with blood dripping down the walls.

It was only when Hermione Granger’s name was called that his nerves seemed to return with full force. She had dressed for the occasion in formal robes and faced the assembled Wizengamot with an expression of determination on her face.

“We’d been lured into a trap.” She spoke with a calm detachment that Draco couldn’t help but admire; he still couldn’t think about that night without feeling panicked. “Harry was injured and unconscious. I heard a shout to run but I didn’t know who it was. When I saw Draco I thought for a minute he might have been with the Death Eaters but then I realised he couldn’t be…”

“Why couldn’t he have been?” Madam Fawley cut in abruptly.

Hermione frowned at being interrupted. “Because he’d been in hiding for a while by then. Harry had seen him just before the Ministry fell and the Order knew his Dad was dead so I was reasonably sure he wasn’t there to harm us. He was firing all the spells he could to stop the snake and trying to stop it getting to us; he tackled it to stop it biting Harry again. It gave me enough time to get away.”

“What did Mr Malfoy say to you when you had managed to escape with both him and Mr Potter?”

“He seemed surprised that I’d taken him with us. I don’t think he expected me to do that.”

“Would you have left him behind if you hadn’t had an easy opportunity to take him?”

Hermione glanced over towards Draco, a flicker of guilt passing over her features. “Yes. Harry needed to survive even if it meant someone else getting left behind. That’s what Draco said himself actually when I asked him about it.”

“Could you elaborate?”

“Well, I think he knew that what he’d just done should have got him killed. He seemed pretty surprised when we landed on the hillside. I just wanted to know why he’d do it when he and Harry had never really been friends.”

Madam Fawley gave a wry smile. “Something of an understatement I believe, Miss Granger, so what did Mr Malfoy say?”

“He said that if he died it was over for him but if Harry died it was over for everyone so Harry was more important.”

“A statement which stands at odds to someone accused of supporting the Dark Lord during the war.” 

“Exactly.” Hermione gave a decisive nod. 

“Now Miss Granger, I understand that at one-point last year you all were captured and taken to Voldemort’s base of operations. Please tell the court what Mr Malfoy did when this happened.”

Up until now Draco had never been sure that Hermione had understood what had been going through his head as he’d talked his way into keeping his wand. Part of him had always worried that she’d truly believed he’d decided to re-join the Dark Lord. As Hermione described their capture and transportation to the Manor he stared resolutely at the floor, only glancing up again when she came to the point where he’d made that final choice.

“He stunned Bellatrix Lestrange straight in the back and then helped me. He gave me a wand – mine had been taken – and we were going to try and get Harry and Ron away too. Draco couldn’t have known that they were free already.”

Hermione grew quiet. As another few seconds slid past Draco heard the impatient rustle of Madam Fawley’s robes as she stood and walked forward. “Please continue Miss Granger.”

Draco could feel Hermione’s eyes on him and glanced up to meet them. He looked away for a second, searching out the place in the crowd where he hoped his Mother was, and then meeting Hermione’s eyes once more gave the tiniest nod.

“Narcissa Malfoy came after us. She said to him he could come home and everything would be okay again. When she wouldn’t stand aside, he hexed her so we could escape.” 

There was an outbreak of furious whispering from above their heads. Hermione flushed red but ploughed resolutely ahead. “He could have given Harry up there and then but he didn’t. That wasn’t cowardice. That was about the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”

There were more than whispers now and the muttering grew loud enough that the presiding Mugwump had to call for order. 

Madam Fawley gave him a brief smile of triumph. That was why she had switched the witnesses. She had planned this. 

“No further witnesses, your honour.”

*

He didn’t sleep well the night between the hearing and verdict. In the end he managed only a few snatched hours before the inevitable nightmare struck.

_A flash of green light_  
The snake.  
So much blood. 

Draco sat bolt upright, hair stuck to his forehead by sweat and heart beating out of his chest. Someone was calling his name. It was his Mum. Draco shook off her vice like grip on his shoulder and forced himself to take deep, slow breaths. 

His Auror guard was silhouetted in the doorway. “Everything alright, Mr Malfoy?”

He nodded his head and forced the words out. “Just a nightmare. I’ll be fine in a moment.”

“You clearly are not fine.” His Mum said tightly, turning to the Auror. “Could you get us some Chamomile Tea?”

“I’m not your House Elf, Madam Malfoy.” The man retorted. “The boy is fine. If you want tea; get it yourself.”

She looked like she wanted to argue the toss, glancing first back at Draco and then to the Auror with an expression of tight-lipped disapproval. “Very well then,” she said eventually, rising smoothly and glaring at the man until he moved aside to let her past.

“Get those a lot, do you?” The Auror said once his Mum had disappeared around the corner of the corridor. His tone was not unkind and Draco paused for a fraction of a second before opting not to lie.

“Often enough.” Draco muttered. “I’ll be fine. I don’t need a fuss.” He missed Luna at moments like this and her calm, matter-of-fact approach to dealing with things that made him want to crawl out of his own skin. 

“I’ll wager you’ve seen some sights.” The man continued quietly. “We all have.”

His Mum came back a few minutes later with a tray of tea and fussed about setting out the cups for them both. In a little over six hours’ time the Wizengamot would return its verdict. He knew his Mum was thinking about it, her eyes kept creeping to the clock on the far side of the room and back to him.

“If they send you to Azkaban,” she said eventually, “I will spend every last knut I have to see you free.”

“I hope they won’t.” He murmured. 

His Mum leaned over and planted a kiss on the top of his ruffled hair. “Drink your tea before it gets cold.”

The tea warmed his cold hands. He poured a cup for his Mother and opened the curtains to see the grey light of dawn gathering on the edges of the horizon. His Mum pulled her own low ottoman next to his and picked up her own cup. They sat together in front of the window, watching the sun rise over London.


	6. Chapter 6

Draco and Madam Fawley arrived at the Courts just before nine. He wasn’t even due to appear for the sentencing until eleven but he had to be here and so here he was.

The benches in the waiting area were uncomfortable. Draco was fairly certain this was a deliberate choice. No one who had been summoned before the Wizengamot should be able to rest easy whilst they awaited justice.

He had never been very good at waiting before the war. It had been too easy to simply reach out and take what he wanted without having to put up with any delay. Months of living with death and loss as close companions, however, had given him some hard lessons in patience. With half an hour to go he was escorted by the Usher back into the same ante-chamber beside the court room where again he waited, counting the number of cracks in the paintwork on the ceiling to pass the time.

The wait couldn’t last forever and eventually the door to the chambers swung open.

“Mr Malfoy, if you would be so good as to come with me.”

There was no chair now only a blank space in the centre of the room. He was led to it and then left alone, exposed to the eyes of all seated in the rows above him. There was a shuffle and rustle of robes and feet as the members of the Wizengamot filed through to take their seats. Then at last the all present voice.

“Draco Malfoy appears today for judgment in the case against him. He is charged with…”

He listened to the charges being read as if he were slightly outside of his body. Why had they made him stay standing? Was it for extra humiliation when he collapsed on the floor sobbing for mercy? 

There was no more time left.

“I asked you a question, Mr Malfoy.”

And just like that he was back in the room, sweat sliding down his back and hands clenched into fists to keep them still. 

“I’m sorry, could you repeat it?”

“Are you ready for the Wizengamot to pass their judgment upon you?”

What would happen if he just said no? Draco fought down a sudden mad impulse to laugh and nodded jerkily. “Yes I am.”

“The Wizengamot finds compelling evidence that Draco Malfoy acted in support of the Wizard Voldemort and actively used illegal curses and dark magic to aid in the commission of murder and violence by Voldemort’s supporters.”

Had anyone ever vomited all over the floor of the High Court, Draco wondered? He hoped he wouldn’t be the first.

“Mr Malfoy has a proven history of accepting and tacitly supporting the views promoted by Voldemort’s supporters however this, whilst distasteful, is not in itself is not a crime. It is clear that, based on his age at the time of the alleged offenses and on the testimony of his fellow students, Mr Malfoy cannot be held fully culpable for his actions.”

There were seventeen black tiles to his right and nineteen to his left. Who had designed a court room that wasn’t symmetrical in its decoration?

“We accept the argument of his defence that he was subject to extreme pressure and coercion. It is this court’s opinion that Mr Malfoy should therefore not face the most severe penalties which this court is able to apply.”

His head snapped up at that, gazing up at the ring of lights blocking his view of the crowd.

“Mr Malfoy, we understand that you have been offered a place to apprentice as a Healer if you are able to successfully complete your education at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Draco swallowed and coughed to force his uncooperative vocal cords to work. “Yes.” 

“This court imposes a fine of 250,000 Galleons, Mr Malfoy. The monies raised will be used to fund access to Wizarding Education for Muggleborn students and pay reparations to victims of Voldemort’s regime. You are directed to cooperate fully with the Pecuniary Department in this matter. Your sentence of life imprisonment has been suspended. It is my duty to advise you that any further involvement with the law that results in you appearing before this court will see you taken to Azkaban with immediate effect.”

A gong sounded out a low note of brass finality.

He stood there in the centre of the room feeling stunned and breathless. Was that it? Was it over?

One of the Court Ushers coughed politely and touched his arm. “This way, Mr Malfoy.”

He was ushered through the antechamber and back out into the chaos of the main corridors outside where a wall of noise crashed into him. He breathed out a sigh of relief when the Security Wizards stepped forwards, wands out and directed the crowd to stand back and give him some space. Hayes was at his side in an instant.

“I’ll escort you back to your Rooms if you’d like.”

“I would like very much!” Draco gave Hayes a weak smile, still feeling a bit like the world was coming from too far away. 

Draco followed Hayes through the twisting back passages of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, past desks with glaring red memos and the faces of his friend’s parents scowling back at him from wanted posters. It could so easily have been him in those posters. His whole future had turned on a few seconds and now it seemed to open up in front of him.

“Bit over the top back there, don’t you think?” He said eventually when Hayes came to the door that he said would lead them back out to a good Apparition spot. “Am I going to have to stay in hiding to avoid the press until I can go back to school?”

Hayes cocked his head and shrugged. “The Prophet and WWN always want to have an angle on cases like this. It won’t be all about you forever; there’s McNair still to come and then Dolores – hers will make yours look like a candle next to a bonfire.”

At that moment Draco remembered his Mother and Aunt. “Is someone helping out Mum? She – she hasn’t been feeling that well of late. I wouldn’t want them to hound her?”

“Not to worry. Proudfoot was seeing to that. Shall we?”

No one was back in the hotel suite when he arrived back. Hayes shook his hand and wished him good luck and then left. There was no need for an Auror escort anymore. Everything felt different now the weight of the trial had lifted. He wanted to jump on his broom and do barrel turns and loop the loops until all his excess energy finally faded away. 

Another twenty minutes slid past. Draco was just beginning to wonder if he should ask the Front Desk if his Mother had left a message for him when he heard voices in the corridor.

“…can’t seriously expect that he’d want to see you?”

“Like you’d know anything about what Draco wants…”

“…leave it and go, Dean…”

Draco pushed open the door to find a very unimpressed Justin Finch-Fletchley and Dean Thomas on one side of the corridor and a furious looking Theo Nott on the other. He looked between the three of them, too tired to waste energy on any mind games they felt like playing.

“I take it you’re all here to see me?” Dean and Theo exchanged sheepish looks. Draco sighed and stepped aside. “Well, come in then.”

“I think that went about as well as it could have.” Theo observed, settling himself into one of the chairs surrounding the fireplace giving a very good impression of being perfectly at ease. 

“Wasn’t your Dad on You-Know-Who’s side?” Justin asked quietly, looking at Theo with cautious interest. 

“I’m not my Father.” Theo retorted. “And Draco’s my friend. I didn’t want him to have his life destroyed.”

Justin shrugged, looking as if he wasn’t sure how much to believe what Theo said however much he might want to. “I’m glad they didn’t send him to Azkaban as well.” He turned to look at Draco. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Go back to school I suppose. Try to get the marks to accept my place at St Mungo’s.” 

“Wicked!” Dean grinned. “They actually gave you a place?” His expression shifted and became sadder. “Going back to Hogwarts is going to be strange. At least we’ll be going together – wonder where they’ll put us?”

Until that moment Draco hadn’t even thought about what going back would really mean. What would it be like to sleep in a dormitory alongside a boy whose parents had been sent to Azkaban for supporting the Dark Lord? They wouldn’t all be like Theo. Would they be like he had been at the end of his fifth year, full of hate and bile?

“There’s talk of abolishing all the houses, you know.” Theo remarked. “Well, not sorting anyway, just mixing us all up any old way.”

“God help any new Slytherins if they do sort.” Justin muttered, drawing sharp looks from both Theo and Draco. He stared back at them defiantly. “What? You think people are just going to forget the war?”

“I think it’s very important not to forget.” Theo said slowly, his gaze flicking sideways to Dean who laid a comforting hand on Justin’s arm. “But I don’t think blaming and excluding a bunch of eleven-year-olds is going to help anyone move forward.”

Justin shrugged. “I just find it hard to trust you all.” A flicker of a smile showed on his face. “Except maybe Draco, and I never thought I’d say that.”

“True,” Dean slipped an arm around Justin’s shoulders and squeezed comfortingly. “He’s not nearly as much of a dick as he used to be.”

Draco rolled his eyes but couldn’t entirely prevent a smile. “Well then you should give Theo a chance. He was never as much of a dick as I was.”

Theo never got his chance to fire back because at that moment the door opened and Aunt Andromeda and his Mother came in, looking mildly surprised to find a gaggle of young men occupying their hotel room.   
Draco felt himself tense as his Mother’s gaze skated over the two Muggleborns.

“Who are these boys, Draco?”

“Friends, Mum. Dean and Justin,” Draco nodded to them in turn. “We spent quite a lot of time together at the Order’s Safe House.”

“Ah,” the smile on his Mother’s face was as brittle as thin ice. “I see, well thank you for coming to see my son. I’m sure he’s very tired after his long day.”

Dean wouldn’t miss the edge to her expression. Draco could hear the polite restraint in his voice as he spoke up. “We just wanted to see how he was, Mrs Malfoy. We know it’s been hard.”

“I suppose you three were going to try and steal him away for some fun?” Aunt Andromeda cut in, giving them all a much friendlier look. “We should let them go, Narcissa. Draco deserves to let his hair down a little.”

“What a perfectly awful Muggle expression.” His Mother sniffed. “I had planned for us to return back to Falmouth but if you wish to go with these boys then I certainly shan’t prevent you.”

There was a fraction of a pause before the word boys and Draco caught the look that passed between Theo and Justin as they heard it.

“Let’s…uhh…come on Dean.” Justin took Dean’s hand and almost hauled him to his feet. 

Theo rose gracefully up out of his seat and gave a small bow towards Narcissa. “Madam Malfoy.” Then he too was gone, skulking outside waiting for Draco to extricate himself from another night in the countryside.  
He sighed and turned to face his Mother’s disappointment head on.

“I didn’t know they were coming.” He fought to keep his voice level and the pleading out of it. “I didn’t plan on running off the second it was over. I didn’t even know what was going to happen.”

There were sudden tears in his Mother’s eyes. “It isn’t safe out there. I don’t want you away from me again.” 

Of course, this would be the first time they’d been properly apart since she came home from St Mungo’s! How had he missed that part of the conversation? “I’ll be perfectly safe, Mum. You know that.” He softened the words with a gentle embrace. “I’ll be home by tomorrow.”

She returned the hug tight enough to hurt. “Promise me you won’t do anything silly or go anywhere dangerous?”

“Cissy, they’re young men going to a bar. The worst Draco will have is a hang-over.” His Aunt gave him a stern look. “And I’m sure he’ll be responsible, won’t you Draco.”

His Mother looked between Draco and her sister and sighed. “If I had to choose a vice; I’d pick the trains. But I suppose I can’t have you with me forever. Go then.”

Draco pushed open the door and stepped into the corridor. “Well,” He gave Theo a wicked grin that brought back memories of happier days and then looked back at Justin hopefully, “I don’t suppose you could talk your way into getting us all a table at the Badger and Boar?”

“I suppose so,” Justin frowned. “All of us?”

Theo smiled back at Draco and shot a questioning look towards Justin. “Think you’re up to it, Finch-Fletchley? I suppose if I’m to be seen at the Hufflepuff club then Draco’s dark glamour might take the sting of the knock to my reputation.”

“Dark glamour?” Dean, who had so far watched the conversation in silence, snorted, sounding more amused than mocking. “Not exactly the words I’d use to describe you, Draco. Would it be okay, Justin? Would they let us in?”

Justin tilted his head and gave them all a faint smile. “Only one way to find out.”

They made an odd group as they crowded their way along the pavement; Draco still in his formal court robes, Theo with a top hat and cloak over his Muggle garb, Justin looking like he stepped out of an issue of the Tatler and only Dean looking anything like the Muggles passing them by on the pavement.

“So where exactly is the Bother and Bore?” Theo asked airily, tipping his hat at a gaggle of goggling tourists.

“St James’s,” Justin rolled his eyes as if this was the most obvious question anyone could ever have asked. “Where else would it be?”

“On the Mall, where all decent people have their drinking holes.” Theo shot back, earning another smile from Draco.   
It was good to be outside again and free without worrying about someone attacking them or the prospect of life in prison. They weren’t that far from St James’s and Draco tipped his head back to take in the deep blue of the late August day feeling absolutely happy to be alive.

*

Back before the world had exploded he’d liked to pretend that he could hold his drink; all of them had, Crabbe, Goyle even Blaise. They’d all been a bunch of stupid kids of course but he was sure that his tolerance for alcohol had only become worse. Either that or he just wanted to let go of the coiled tension that had been living inside him for what felt like decades. Whatever the truth of it the result was the same and soon he was four drinks deep and giggling with his arm around Dean’s shoulder.

“…and then rather than vanishing it like he was supposed to he - mmph.”

Dean’s hand clamped across his mouth muffling the rest of Draco’s attempts to embarrass him. 

“Enough of my failures with digging a long drop please.”

Draco pushed Dean away and smirked. “But it’s FUNNY!”

“To you, you weren’t the one who ended up quite literally covered in shit. What about the time you tried to transfigure the fish and…”

“So immature Dean,” Draco shook his head. “So immature.”

Theo looked from one to the other with the same faint expression of amusement on his face. “You know, you almost sound like you enjoyed camping out through winter.”

“It wasn’t all bad.” Draco admitted. “Sometimes it was almost like we just were our own little world and no one else was going to come along and ruin it.” And that was enough to bring the twist of pain back into the memory. “I’m glad I found the people I did.”

“Me too.” Dean gave him a warm smile. “Don’t know what I’d have done without you two. It’s gonna make going back easier.”

“I can’t believe you’re actually going to go back, Draco.” Theo leaned across and topped up their glasses. “Though, after spending six years watching you do all you can to avoid schoolwork and still somehow pass I am fairly confident that you won’t disgrace yourself.”

“I’m not all that happy that Dean is leaving me in London by myself.” Justin shrugged and took a long swallow of his drink. “Shall we form a grievance committee and keep them both here.”

“Don’t you dare.” Draco shot back. “And you can come up and see us any time.”

“Yes, Justin sighed patiently, “but how would you feel if your boyfriend – well girlfriend – lived the wrong end of the bloody country?”

“Boyfriend?” Draco said stupidly, the word somehow failing to register properly. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

“Dean?” Justin said, slipping his hand into Dean’s and holding it up as some sort of demonstration. 

There were a lot of things that Draco knew he should say in response to this but he blamed Alcohol for his currently being unable to say them. “But…what?”

“Have you not noticed?” Now Theo was laughing at him alongside Dean and Justin’s poorly concealed amusement. “God, it’s been three hours and I picked it within twenty minutes. You’ve had what, four months?”

“I thought you went out with the Weasley girl, Ginevra? Before Potter got her anyway.” 

“Yeah and? Now I’m with Justin.”

Draco looked at the pair of them, hands still entwined and thought back over all the times he’s seen them together since he’d found himself at Prewett Hall back in March. Now it seemed obvious and he wanted to kick himself for missing so many obvious signs. 

“Alright,” he shrugged, putting on his best display of nonchalance. “I suppose I should buy you both a drink to celebrate then.”

*

He woke the next day in Dean’s Muggle flat in central London with only the haziest recollections of how he came to be there, Theo’s snores driving an icepick through his temple and Justin lying on his right arm, still looking to be entirely asleep.

“Merlin’s arse,” he began as he spotted Dean stirring from the other side of Justin. “My head feels like I’ve been kicked by a Hippogriff.”

“And you’d know all about that.” Justin muttered darkly, not even opening his eyes. 

“You wound me, Finch-Fletchley. After I vanished your vomit last night from the floor of the - ” Draco spotted movement from the corridor of the flat leading to the bedroom and abruptly switched tack. “Oh, Madam Thomas, err – good morning.”

Madam Thomas gave him a friendly enough smile for a parent who has just found a group of young men in a state of disrepair on her living room floor. “Celia, Draco – I’ve told you before.” She turned a much more severe look on her son. “Dean?”

Dean looked extremely sheepish. “We were celebrating, Mum. We’ve had some good news. Draco gets to go back to school next year.”

Theo was now sitting up looking slightly green around the edges regarding Celia and Dean’s sisters with vague apprehension. “Err…are these Muggles friendly?”

Celia Thomas didn’t miss a beat. “Depends on if you clean up after yourself, young man. Celebrating the chance to go back to school? You Wizards are a strange lot I have to say.”

Draco didn’t feel like explaining to the woman who so far had again welcomed him trespassing into her home that the celebration was because he’d not been sent to prison for joining a group that would have murdered her son in a heartbeat and thought of her as little more than a beast.

“I’ve got a couple of Clear Head Capsules.” Theo announced, which led Draco to strongly consider hugging him there and then. “If the rest of you want some?”

“Absolutely,” Draco snatched one out of Theo’s open palm and chewed with relish, feeling the concentrated potion already spreading a feeling of warm, rejuvenated life into his tired limbs and aching head.   
Several minutes later Draco, Theo and Justin were sitting on the sofas making polite and awkward conversation with Celia and two very overawed fourteen-year old Muggle girls while Dean helped his Mum speed along the Breakfast.

She watched him with mingled approval and mild irritation as he levitated the dishes onto the table with a flick of his wand. “Why did you never do this before when you came home?”

“I was underage.” Dean shrugged. “I can do as much magic as I like now, within reason.”

Celia flashed a grin. “I’ll have to give you extra cleaning to do around the house then.”

Breakfast was just as amazing as the first morning after the battle. Perhaps it was just that he associated the tastes with a feeling of relief and hope but he was fairly sure that he wouldn’t mind permanently adding this food to his daily repertoire. He caught Theo sneaking a glance at him as he expertly added slices of banana between his bread and was pleased to see his friend not making any tone deaf observations about Muggle culture.

None of them spoke much while the food was being wolfed down and it wasn’t until Draco was almost too full to be able to move that Dean grinned at his Mum and then back at Draco.

“Know any cleaning charms, Draco?” Dean asked, giving Draco a smirk that said he knew full well he was setting Draco up.

“Oh no you don’t, Dean Thomas,” Celia quirked an eyebrow. “Draco is a guest. He can do the dishes next time.”

“I’ll help.” Justin stood up and followed Dean back through into the kitchen leaving Theo and Draco behind.

“I didn’t know you could eat Bananas in savoury things.” Theo muttered, drawing giggles from Dean’s sisters. 

Draco stood on Theo’s foot to silence him. “It was very good Madam Thomas, thank you for having us. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer.”

“You’re not staying?”

“I should be getting back to my Mother and Aunt,” Draco frowned at what his Mum would say if she knew where he was right now. “But I think I want to go to St Mungo’s first and find two of the Healers who have helped me get a place there. I want to thank them in person.”

*

He hadn’t really consciously planned arriving on the top floor where Weasley’s room was, it was more that his feet took him there. The Matron at the entrance to the ward gave him a severe look when he presented himself to her and asked if Weasley was up for a visitor.

Weasley looked much better than the last time Draco had seen him and was sitting up in bed when Draco was shown in. He looked Draco up and down with cautious interest. “I heard they let you off.”  
Draco shrugged and dropped into the chair next to Weasley’s bed. “You look better.”

Weasley never was any good at taking hints, either that or he wasn’t allowing Draco to just change the subject. “Hermione is glad you didn’t go. So what was it?”

“Life Probation and a fine that I can live with. Do you want to play Chess or not?”

A short while later Draco found himself re-evaluating his life choices when Weasley triumphantly checkmated him in under twelve moves.

“I wasn’t concentrating properly.” He complained, feeling an old unpleasantness rise in his gut. “Or else I’d have seen that Bishop.”

Half way through their second match, in which he had saved himself further embarrassment by spotting a lurking Rook, Weasley looked up at him with shrewd interest. “So, you’re going back to school?”

“Yes. If I get the marks I want to come here and train as a Healer.”

Weasley gave him an appraising look. “I suppose that means you actually were good at Potions instead of being Snape’s pet?”

Draco couldn’t prevent a raised eyebrow. “Why not both? And you, straight out of bed and off to join Harry at the Aurors I suppose?”

Weasley gave him a wry smile. “Funnily enough I just turned that down.”

“Really? I’d have thought it was exactly what you’d want. Stalking the land like an avenging beast, hunting down all my old associates.”

“I’ve got more important stuff to do.” Weasley shrugged and at Draco’s curious look added: “George wants someone to help at the joke shop for one.”

Draco really didn’t mean to laugh and covered it up with a cough as soon as he could. Weasley gave him a sour look. “I know it might sound odd but I really want to make the world a nicer place without having to risk my family losing anyone else. And George needs me. I’ll be going with Hermione to Australia too as soon as they let me out of here, which hopefully will be in a few days.”

“Okay.” Draco let the awkward silence drag on whilst he groped for the right words. “I’m sorry that I laughed it’s just…”

“Weird. Yeah, I know. But I think I’ve earned the right to do what I need to do now.”

“I’d say so.” Draco kept his face poker straight as he moved his pawn into position. “We’ve all been through enough. Australia will be interesting; do you have anyone going with you?”

“Your Healer friend, Turpin. I asked him and he’s agreed but…” Weasley frowned looking uncomfortable. “He said that we might not be successful.”

“What do you mean? Surely it’s just a matter of lifting the charms.”

“Apparently not. I’ve tried to talk to Hermione but – well she doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.” Weasley gave Draco a strange look. “Which leads me to say what I’m going to say now. And believe me it feels weird to say it.” Weasley took a deep breath. “Just – look out for Hermione when you’re both back at school. She says she’s fine but – she isn’t.”

Draco frowned. “And risk your sister hexing me again if I piss her off. No thank you. And that’s checkmate.”

Weasley rolled his eyes and reached to tip his king. “I’m serious, Malfoy. Ginny is her friend but it’s different. You were there, you know what it was like.”

They looked at one another in silence for another few seconds before Draco sighed and nodded. “I can do that.” 

“Good. And thanks. Do you have time for a tie break?”

Draco glanced at the clock on the wall. “I should go. I wanted to catch Culpepper and Turpin before the end of their shift. And I’m on a high so I might as well leave whilst I’m ahead.”

Ron stood up, offering his hand. “See you then, Malfoy.”

Draco took it and shook firmly. “I’m sure you’ll be out of here soon enough Weasley, come and keep all of us unruly school children in line at the Hogs Head, won’t you?”

Weasley’s smile was genuine. “Sure, you still owe me a few drinks yet.”


	7. Chapter 7

It was the middle of July, three weeks after his hearing and the conversation with Weasley about Hermione when Draco’s breakfast was interrupted by his Hogwarts Letter, which was absolutely reassuring in its ordinariness. All the same he put off going to Diagon Alley to collect his school things until the last week of August when he got a letter for Dean inviting him along whilst Dean did his own shopping. 

It still felt strangely exposing to be walking about with no threat of death or imprisonment hanging over him. Still, he didn’t want to draw prying eyes and so he kept his cloak up as he hurried forward down the narrow, cobbled street towards The Golden Snitch, a particularly glitzy coffee shop, where he and Dean had arranged to meet.

“Justin’s staying with his parents this weekend.” Dean said by way of greeting, answering Draco’s question before it was even asked. “He’s not seen much of them and he wanted to have a bit of normal time again.”

Draco’s eyebrows shot up at that. “Normal time?”

“Normal for us Muggleborns. He’s not going back to Hogwarts. He’s decided to work as liaison between the Ministry and the Muggle Government. His Father’s pretty high up in the Civil Service.”

“I hope you haven’t changed your mind about it all?” Draco tried to keep his tone casual and hide his not inconsiderable apprehension at the idea of going back to school without an ally.

Dean’s expression hardened. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m not giving them the win.”

“Well,” Draco smiled. “Shall we start with Flourish and Blotts?”

Draco scanned the shelves and scooped volume after volume into his basket; Herbology was going to be the really kicker although there was a decent amount of crossover with Potions and he felt fairly confident there. At least he’d have two Professors he knew for those subjects. Defence Against the Dark Arts would be different and he couldn’t imagine anyone teaching Transfiguration other than Professor McGonagall.   
Dean seemed to once again be in tune with Draco’s thoughts. “Wonder who will be head of Gryffindor with old McGonagall in charge now?”

“The Prophet announced it this morning.” A familiar and very welcome voice drifted between the stacks and was followed by an explosion of bushy hair framing the slightly nervous face of Hermione Granger. 

“Jebadiah Proudfoot for Defence against the Dark Arts and Ardent Groat for Transfiguration. I’m really quite excited to meet Professor Groat, he’s written some quite enthralling papers on the subject of sublimation.”

Draco’s stomach did a nervous backflip and he slid into his best imitation of relaxed surprise. 

“Hermione, what brings you here?”

“Same as you two I suppose, we all need books.”

Draco took in the dozen heavy volumes, noting several that weren’t on the reading list at all. “Hogwarts does have a library you know.”

Dean smothered a chuckle as Hermione fixed them both with a disapproving glare. Draco gave a quick apologetic smile and looked around the shop working up his courage before finally getting the words out. “Do you have much more to get? Dean and I were about to stop for some lunch. You’re welcome to join us.”

He poked Dean hard in the ribs when the other man threatened to correct him and was gratified that Dean took the hint. His relief soon turned to fresh nerves when Dean smiled sweetly and suggested that he could carry on and get the potions supplies and then join Draco and Hermione in another half an hour or so.

“Not hungry yet, Mum’s been feeding me so much. She keeps complaining I’m too thin.”

“Wear more robes,” Draco shot back, “they don’t complain so much then.”

“Yeah mate,” Dean snorted. “Like I’m gonna go wandering up a block in Peckham in a dress and not end up breaking the Statute? See you both in half an hour.”

And with that Dean wandered off to pay for his books and head towards the Apothecary giving Draco one last surreptitious backwards glance and encouraging smile. Draco turned back to Hermione and was surprised to find her looking just as nervous as he felt.

“Do you – uhh – I suppose we should...” He began, suddenly conscious of the eyes of the shoppers around them as the notorious ex-Death Eater and one of Harry Potter’s closest friends danced an awkward dance around one-another. Hermione didn’t miss that either and rolled her eyes. 

“Oh, for goodness sake,” she sniffed and marched off towards the counter to pay. “You’d think we’d sprouted tentacles the way they’re goggling.”

“I’m pretty sure if you wanted me to sprout anything I’d be well along already,” Draco smiled and followed after her. “Look I’m sorry, I didn’t want to put you in an awkward spot.”

“I said hello first.” Hermione said simply. They paid and left the shop, falling into step beside one another head back towards the Golden Snitch again. 

He held the door open for her and watched the owner, a haughty looking woman with an aquiline nose and dark eyes look them over disapprovingly. It was refreshing to not know which one of them she disapproved of however and she showed them both to a small nook without any further comment. 

Hermione set about unpacking her bags and then suddenly began digging in the front pocket of her backpack. “Oh, and I have something for you.” She handed him a stiff white envelope with the claret and blue logo of West Ham stamped across the top right hand. 

“Brilliant!” Draco carefully opened the letter and frowned at the two rectangles that fell out. “Are these them? I thought they’d be bigger. Dean is going to be so pleased.”

Hermione echoed the smile on his face. “Yes, they’ll be plastic. No one wants paper tickets that you can lose or rip. You got two?”

“Well I promised I’d go along.” Draco tried to sound less eager than he really was. “And if it’s not my thing then Dean has a spare to take Justin along.”

He felt her gaze snap sideways and look him over with careful interest. “I think it was a kind thing to do.” 

Draco glanced over and met her eyes briefly, pausing to hold the door open for her as they entered the small interior of the tea rooms. “He’s been a good friend to me. I owe him and a lot of other people a debt I’ll never be able to pay back.”

“It’s not about owing and paying.” Hermione said carefully, picking up the menu and staring at it with a little too much intensity. “At least not for me. There’s a good chance I wouldn’t be here either without you. So many things could have been different with just a few seconds either way.”

“I am grateful though.” His tongue felt thick and clumsy in his mouth. They couldn’t talk about this much more without touching on memories that he was sure Hermione, like him, would prefer to avoid on a nice summer’s afternoon. “Will you at least let me pay for your lunch?”

“It depends what might accompany it.” Hermione tried for a severe look and ruined it by smiling almost immediately. “Are you going to drink too much Butterbeer and start singing ‘Don’t jinx me, baby’ again?”

“No.” Draco said, with as much dignity as he could muster, “and you can tell Dean that just for that bit of gossip I’m thinking about buying a Newcastle shirt to my first football game now.”

Hermione laughed at that and gave him a bright, open smile. “Alright then. If I must be the subject of gossip I’m going to at least enjoy myself.”

“That’s good then.” He returned her smile and then paused, wondering how to break into the topic he really wanted to discuss with her. She must have read his mind because her smile suddenly faltered. The continent of Australia seemed to be trying to insert itself into the two feet separating them across the table. 

It was Hermione who broke the tension eventually. “I know you want to ask.” She said, lips thin and eyes fixed firmly on the table top. “But I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Maybe eventually, but not yet.”

“Alright then.” Draco said quietly. He had enough demons of his own not to want to try and exorcise other people’s before they were ready for it. “Would you like to talk about my drunken exploits instead.”

Hermione’s eyes shot up to meet his own, the spark back almost as quickly as it had seemed to leave. “As long as you promise not to sing.”

“I did get quite merry,” he admitted, “not that I am objecting to it. I think we all needed to let off some steam.”

“I’m sure you four were quite a sight.” Hermione made her best attempt at a look of disapproval before it softened into relief. “I’m glad they didn’t send you to prison. You didn’t deserve it.”

They ordered a sharing platter in the end, something continental full of cheeses and strange combinations of vegetables and meat. It was the first proper conversation they’d had since the War had ended. They’d never had time before for nice casual chats, it had always been life and death with consequences too high to bear thinking about.

Now, as they made hesitating awkward small talk Draco found himself torn between worry that any second now he was going to say something stupid and ruin what was so far a pleasant afternoon and a stranger worry that he wouldn’t and that this unspoken and not entirely unpleasant tension between them would only grow.

After a further half an hour the door to the café tinkled open and Dean made his way over to their table laden heavy with various parcels. Hermione half rose to help him when he hoisted several large bundles onto one finger and grinned. “Feather light charm. I love being a legal adult. So, you two looked in deep conversation, sure you want company?”

Draco exchanged a quick glance with Hermione. “Of course, we do!” Draco nodded to the spare chair. “We ordered the platter for us all to share, there’s plenty come and sit down.”

Dean sorted his pile from Draco’s and then slid into the spare chair, picking at the cured meats and cheeses. Draco let him get comfortable before slipping the West Ham letter from inside his robes. “Got a letter for you here.” He said casually and watched with increasing gratification as Dean’s expression changed swiftly from puzzled confusion to disbelief and finally to jubilation. 

“You actually did it?” Dean cradled the small card as if it was a priceless treasure. “You have no idea how much I wanted one of these when I was a kid! Ha! I’m gonna see Jermaine Defoe!”

“We are going to see Jermaine Defoe,” Draco corrected. “I thought it made sense to get two tickets. Though of course you’re welcome to take anyone you like. Justin might…”

“Justin is all about Rugby,” Dean pulled a face as if he couldn’t imagine why anyone would watch anything except Football. “Or Cricket – though I can cope with that. No, this is our thing. I’ll make you one of the Hammers yet.”

Hermione had been watching the whole exchange with a look of faint amusement. Dean rolled his eyes and gave her a cheeky smile. “Go on then Hermione, what’s the thing you dreamed about doing when we were camping in the mud for weeks on end.”

“Having a spa treatment,” Hermione’s eyes sparkled with mischief, “and then perhaps moving my tent into the British Library to camp there instead.”

Dean exchanged a look of mock exasperation with Draco. “Witches, strangest of all the creatures on this earth.”

It was nice to pass the afternoon this way, just talking about whatever they wanted to. For the first time in several years it felt as if his life was opening up instead of narrowing down into a darker and darker path. As the afternoon drew to a close, he found himself disappointed that they’d have to part again soon with no set agreement on when to meet again. 

*  
For the remainder of the week in the lead up to Hogwarts, Draco found himself metaphorically chained to the small desk crammed against one wall of his bedroom frantically trying to complete as much reading as he could to catch up with the work he’d missed in sixth year. He was deeply preoccupied with trying to commit the thirteen most potent magical herbs and fungi to memory when the loud crack of someone Apparating shattered the calm of the late summer afternoon.

The sound still had the capacity to make Draco feel on edge and with the Aurors no longer on hand to defend him or his family he automatically reached for his wand upon hearing it. He made his way slowly out onto the landing and pressed himself back out of sight as he heard the door creak open.

A deep, calming voice boomed up the narrow staircase to the place where he was flattened against the wall. 

“Andromeda? Mr Malfoy?” 

Draco poked his head out, almost not believing his own ears. “Minister?”

“Thought I’d got away from this place,” came a second even more familiar voice, “seems it wasn’t to be.” Dawlish peered up the stairs and spotted Draco, a wry smile on his lips. “Your concealment needs work.”  
“Andromeda is down in the village, Minister.” Narcissa appeared from the bedroom to stand atop the stairs, descending down to the two Wizards below. “May I be of any assistance?”

“Madam Malfoy,” Shacklebolt’s tone was absolutely courteous but, Draco noted, devoid of any real warmth. “Thank you, but my business is with your son.” 

Draco made his way down the stairs to stand beside his Mother, very consciously having to prevent himself from hiding behind her. Shacklebolt gave him a much kinder smile than the one that had been directed towards his Mother. 

“Mr Malfoy, I thought you would like to know that the Manor has been deemed safe for your return.” The Minister pulled a large set of ornate golden keys from a pocket of his robes. “And I now return these to you.”  
The last time Draco had seen these keys had been in the hands of his Father. He felt a lump form in his throat and set his jaw to prevent the emotion from showing as he took them, feeling the unexpected weight in his hand.

“That’s good news indeed.”

“A large number of dark objects have been confiscated. We are not pursuing formal charges as your Father’s death rather draws a line under his culpability. I am sure I don’t need to remind you to keep your own slate clean in future.”

Draco bit back a sarcastic reply to this. “I think I’ve had my fill of dark magic for life, Minster. You mentioned wanting to see my Aunt?” 

“Indeed I did, purely a social call but sadly my work is never done. I’m afraid it calls even now and I find myself with not enough time.” Shacklebolt pulled out a watch and consulted it with a frown. “Please pass on my kind regards to her.”

“So, we can just go home? Right now?” Draco turned at the sound of his Mother’s urgent tone.

“Of course.” Shacklebolt inclined his head. “Some of the protective enchantments will require recasting of course but I assure you it is otherwise as you left it. Now you must excuse me, Madam Malfoy, Mr Malfoy.”

His Mother maintained her iron hold over her emotions until the second crack in ten minutes finally signaled that the two Wizards had departed. 

Aunt Andromeda came home half an hour later to find Draco and his Mother sat huddled on the sofa, he with an arm around her shoulders as she sobbed out what seemed to be enough tears to fill an entire ocean. Draco was handed Teddy who studied him solemnly and reproduced white blond hair and grey eyes whilst Aunt Andromeda pressed tea and tissues on her sister. 

It seemed to work because soon enough Narcissa was able to speak again even as she continued to mop her eyes.

“I can’t face it without him there, Andromeda, I just can’t…all those things that happened. All those people…” 

“You don’t need to leave Cissy,” Andromeda said gently. “You can stay here as long as you want. You know that.”

“It’s my home.” His Mother lifted her head and gave Draco a fierce look. “Our home. I must go.”

“We should go.” Draco agreed. “But perhaps not straight away today. We could go tomorrow. Take some flowers to the Crypts and have a time to remember Father.”

*

It was a warm day but it felt cold all the same as the gates melted away for him and the gravel crunched beneath his shoes along the driveway. He had walked this way so many thousands of times, it didn’t make sense to dwell on the time before this so much over all the rest but he had to physically supress a shudder as he pushed open the oak front door and stepped into the cool interior.

His Mother was just behind him radiating an anxious dread that he had to force himself not to mirror. Andromeda was beside her with Teddy in her arms looking around with a blank faced calm that spoke of warring emotions.

“Master and Mistress Malfoy,” a timid high-pitched voice spoke up making all three of the adults jump. “It is only Ubba, Master and Mistress.” The elf sounded just as apprehensive to see them there as they felt being there themselves. “Will you be wanting the rooms prepared?”

“No,” his Mother snapped. “Tea in the drawing room.”

“Thank you, Ubba.” Draco said awkwardly, drawing looks of surprise and irritation from his Aunt and Mother respectively. 

“You don’t need to speak to them like that.” His Mother commented, edging her way down the main hallway to the drawing room as if she expected the carpet to bite her at any moment. 

“Dobby saved my life during the war.” Draco replied. “And Hermione Granger thinks this sort of thing is important. She’s not been proved wrong yet.”

“Our Dobby?” His Mother sniffed. “Well, it – just don’t do it when we have company.”

If they hadn’t been returning to the scene of a living nightmare and he hadn’t been trying particularly hard to be supportive of her Draco would probably have told his Mother that he would say what he wanted when he wanted and to whom he wanted. Instead, at a look from his Aunt, he bit his tongue.

Ubba got a fire going and disappeared to make the tea. Draco found himself drifting back to his old chair and had to supress a shiver of dread at the memory of being summoned from it to the private audience with the Dark Lord. He looked around to drag himself out of that particular memory and smiled down at the sight of Teddy where he lay on the hearthrug looking around himself and cooing at all the dancing shadows cast by the fire. 

“It feels so empty.” His Mother whispered.

“The old place has been through a lot.” Draco sighed. “She needs us back.”

Narcissa smiled at that. “Shall we go and see your Grandparents?”

The Crypts were on the far side of the closest ornamental lawns. Considering the ordeal that the main house had been through, the gardens were in a comparably good state of repair. Lilies lined the path to the crypts and they stopped to pluck a bloom each. Flowers for the dead.

His ancestors rested in a low stone building that had been there longer than the current Manor and dated back to the time of the Norman conquest. Draco had played around there as a child, the solid unsmiling statues featuring as heroes in a hundred adventures. They ducked below the low stone arch and at a flick of his Mother’s wand the torches on the walls illuminated themselves.

The statues seemed almost alive in the flickering light, dozens of sharp boned stern faces gazing back at him from there positions guarding the mortal remains that they represented. Almost until that moment Draco had been fighting ambivalence about whether or not he even wanted to return to the Manor and what he would do once he had; but now at last it seemed clear. He was a Malfoy and this was where he belonged. 

The three of them paused before a blank empty cavity in the wall where his Father had always expected to be interred. 

Draco glaced sideways to take in the expressions of his Aunt and Mother. Andromeda was blank faced and eerily calm; his Mother held herself with rigid tension in every line of her body. She laid the flower in the space where his Father’s bones should be. 

“Lucius.” She murmured, caressing the stone. “We are not broken, my love. Draco lives.”

His Mother turned him expectantly. Draco didn’t know what he should or could say, he never had been very good at expressing himself to his Father even when they could speak easily and often. Then, gently and without pressure, his Mother’s hand was on his shoulder. It was almost like he was five again, silent in the face of the imposing and overwhelming presence of the man who was everything he ever wanted to be. 

“I’ll honour the legacy, Father.” His words stuttered in his throat. “And I’ll do everything I can to bring you home.”

Andromeda laid her flower after that and they stood in solemn silence for another minute, his Mother kissing her fingers and pressing them to the cold stone as she turned to leave. They went back to the main house and stood like strangers in their own drawing room watching Ubba clear away the tea things.

“Prepare the house for my return.” Narcissa addressed the elf brusquely but with less irritation than before. “I know of some young wives who have lost their own homes and husbands since the trials. I trust you do not object to that?”

It took Draco a few moments to realise that she had addressed the last part to him. “I – err…no. Of course not.”

It would be a good use of the house and would bring some life back to it. There had been enough suffering and struggle, if his family could help others then maybe it would go some way to repairing the breach between the Purebloods and Muggleborns that had caused this awful war in the first place.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really more of a self-indulgent post script than a chapter so sorry for that. 
> 
> I do have the 8th year well underway now but I'm not going to post it until I know for sure that I can finish it. This way at least the story is 'complete-ish' in that Draco gets to go back to school.

Dean had already owled him offering to meet at Kings Cross and go through the barrier together but in spite of this Draco couldn’t quite hold back his nerves completely as he made his way down the Muggle part of the station, scanning the crowd. The station clock hands pointed to 10 O’Clock. He stood beneath it and huddled himself back against the brick wall, having a fleeting debate with himself as to whether he could make himself invisible. He cast a glance around and spotted the shiny bright red sign of the Muggle coffee shop where he’d taken refuge the last time he’d been in this station in the mad panicked few hours after he’d tried to flee England.

Everything before this last year seemed like it belonged to another person altogether. He barely recognised the excited little boy he’d once been, ready to step out into the world and become the man his blood and ancestry told him he should be. He caught the curious looks and half hidden smirks of a group of Muggle boys about his age, sniggering at his strange attire and exchanging quick furtive glances between one another. Draco knew what those looks meant; we are normal, you’re not and we will make you regret it. He’d been just like them once.

Where had that got him? 

“Off to a costume party?” A voice interrupted his musing and he looked up to find a kindly older man in a neat blue suit and deep pink shirt smiling at him. “I must say I do think you’ve done rather well, Merlin is it?”

“Uh…yes…” Draco stammered; no Muggle had ever addressed him in the station before. He supposed his parents had not exactly projected approachability.

“It is a great pity,” the man continued, pointedly not looking towards the youths, “that individuality and personal differences are not more celebrated in society. I am sure you agree.”

“People don’t like things that are different.” Draco muttered. “They only like what they understand, what they know.”

“And the world is poorer for it. So, do you know any magic tricks to go with your costume?”

Draco smiled before he could stop himself. “A few.” His curiosity got the better of him before he could talk himself out of it he found himself turning to the man. “Where are you headed?”

The man’s smile faltered a little. “I’m going to visit my son. I take a train up to Edinburgh each year on the anniversary.”

Something about the phrasing struck Draco just enough to freeze the next question in his throat. 

“He was about your age,” the man continued. “Had his whole life ahead of him. I still wish I’d noticed before...” He seemed to catch himself then and the smile was back, sad but genuine. “Goodness and listen to me, I’m sure you don’t need this kind of talk when you’re about to go and have some fun.” His gaze flickered over Draco’s shoulder, “But it looks like our friends have gone. Good thing too as my train is due to leave in five minutes.”

“It’s okay.” Draco gave him a half smile. “I lost my Dad last year so I know how it is.” He paused and after a brief internal debate decided to risk it. “Would you like to see a magic trick before you go.”

The man gave him a searching look. “You lost a Father and I lost a Son. Strange how life brings us together isn’t it. But yes, show me your trick.”

Draco had been thinking rapidly about how to pull this off and brandished his wand theatrically whilst letting the full sleeve of his robes hang down. 

“Florum.” He’d been going for Lilies but got a White Rose, the thorns dug into his forearm as he let his arm drop and the flower slide out from his sleeve. He pulled it loose trying not to wince and handed it to the man. “There, I’m sorry it’s not wrapped. I – couldn’t store it properly if it were.”

The Muggle gaped and for a few horrible seconds Draco pictured himself being dragged back before the Wizengamot and hauled to Azkaban before he could say Pixie.

“That was astonishing sleight of hand, young man.” He pronounced eventually. “Now you must have it back of course.”

“No, it’s for you,” Draco said quickly, “…for your Son.”

“I couldn’t, look at these and so late as well – where did you find roses at this time of year?”

Draco shook his head and held up his hand as the flower was offered back to him. “I have a good supplier. Please,” he added, “I insist.”

The Muggle looked at him for a long few seconds. “Thank you, young man. I am pleased to have met you. Oh,” and his eyes flew to the screen overhead. “Now I really must run.” He thrust his hand at Draco for him to shake. “I’m Alan.”

“Draco.”

Draco shook Alan’s hand firmly and then watched him sprint across the platform, rose in hand. 

“Hey man,” came another far more familiar voice as Dean gave him an easy hug by way of greeting. “Who was that guy?”

“A Muggle I got talking to.” Draco said absently. “He was nice.”

Dean raised an eyebrow but thankfully didn’t ask any further questions. “You ready to go through?”

The clock read half past ten. They’d be able to find a good compartment and wait for Theo and Hermione to join them. 

“Yes, I think so.” Draco nodded. “Let’s get this year started then.”


End file.
